The Soldier Who Stayed
by Jayie The Hufflepuff
Summary: Molly Hooper is the Woman Who Walked the Earth, and now she's back to traveling with the Doctor. But the Year may have changed her more than expected. Sequel to "The Woman Who Counted." Season 4 rewrite with Molly and Sherlock as the Doctor's companions along with Donna, post Reichenbach Fall for Sherlock.
1. Interlude One: Time Crash

She caught the Doctor staring at her with an unreadable expression. The last year had been tough on him, and she knew he always expected people to leave eventually. The fact that she'd decided to stay had clearly gotten to him. She let him have his moment, then turned back to the console with a grin, hopping up and starting up the flight sequence. "Come on, lazy. Time get to get going."

She shot the Doctor a manic, knowing grin. "Allons-y!"

He grinned, running up to join her at the console. Before he could touch anything, however, the TARDIS gave a massive shudder, going into wild convulsions, the likes of which Molly had never felt before. She was thrown back roughly against the grated floor, sliding back and hitting the railing. She let out a slight whimper of pain as her shoulder and head were slammed against the railing. Pain shot through her head, searing heat that faded to a dull throbbing ache. She screwed her eyes shut, suppressing a groan.

After a few moments, the shaking stopped, the TARDIS stilling again. Molly started to open her eyes, then shut them again as harsh light hit her eyes. She waited a few moments, then opened them a slit, waiting for to get used to the light before opening them further.

There wasn't any actual light as far she could tell now, but the whole room seemed to glow slightly, everything seeming just slightly surreal. She could still see the Doctor as he scrambled to his feet and rushed towards her, crouching beside her with concern. "Molly? Molly, are you alright?" the Time Lord asked anxiously.

She tried to shake her head to get rid of the light, but a sudden rush of pain convinced her not to try again. Instead, she blinked a few times. The light got a bit better, but she still felt a bit weak and dizzy. "I'm fine," she said quietly.

The Doctor frowned, not looking convinced. "Molly, look at me." She reluctantly met his gaze, and his frown deepened. "Dilated pupils, and I heard that crack when your head hit the railing. I'd say you've got a concussion."

Suddenly, a new voice spoke. "Do you feel any dizziness or nausea?" Molly blinked in surprise as an unfamiliar man approached from the console, crouching down beside the Doctor.

Molly stared at him uncertainly, fighting another wave of dizziness. "Who are you?" she asked.

The Doctor turned to him, eyes widening in shock. He let out a flat, "What?"

The other man ignored him and focused on Molly. "Just answer the question. Any dizziness or pain?"

He reached forward to help Molly up, but the companion flinched back from his touch, eyes narrowed distrustingly. "I'm fine," she said stiffly. She stood shakily, the Doctor holding her shoulder and helping her up.

The other man narrowed his eyes at Molly's strange behavior, but he didn't comment on it, standing with the other two. Now that she was standing, Molly could see Sherlock already back on his feet, watching the new man with interest. "Good to know," the new man said coolly. "Since you're fine, then, would you like to tell me what you're doing on my TARDIS?"

That helped snap Molly out of her funk slightly. "Your TARDIS?" she repeated, baffled. "Since when? Who are you?"

The man straightened, squaring his shoulders as he announced, "I am the Doctor."

Molly stared at the man in shock, gaping slightly. Reminiscent of the Doctor, all she could manage was a flat, "What?" She turned to the Doctor, her Doctor, in her confusion.

He hesitated. "Yeah, er, long story." The Time Lord seemed excited about the new guy for some reason, but he was more concerned about her. "Come on, you need to sit down." He started to lead her toward a seat, but Molly pulled away.

"I'm fine, Doctor," she insisted more firmly. He looked unconvinced, so she compromised by leaning against the railing.

The other man looked between her and the Doctor with obvious confusion. "He's not the Doctor, I am," he reminded her.

The Doctor turned to him, suddenly grinning widely. "Yeah, about that, oh, this is brilliant. I mean, totally wrong, big emergency, universe goes bang in five minutes, but... brilliant!"

Molly felt a bit irritated with the Time Lord's excitement, and his usual refusal to explain anything. "Doctor? Little explanation would be helpful right now." The Doctor turned back to her, managing to look a little shame-faced. "Now, why does this guy keep saying he's the Doctor?"

"Because he is," the Doctor told her with a grin. Molly blinked uncomprehendingly. "Er, look, remember how I explained about regeneration?"

She suddenly understood. "So this guy's, what, a future you?"

"Past, actually," the Doctor corrected. The other Doctor – past Doctor? – stared at her Doctor with obvious confusion. "My fifth face, five faces ago."

From his spot by the console, Sherlock spoke up. "I see your fashion sense has changed since then, Doctor." He stared at the fifth Doctor with a smirk. "Nice celery." Molly blinked in surprise. She hadn't realized the green on the man's jacket was a stalk of celery. She hasn't really been paying that much attention to his looks before, but now that she knew he was the Doctor, she took a closer look. He was dressed in a beige coat with a white jumper underneath, with striped trousers and a white hat with a red band. It was quite a different look from the Doctor she knew, and the stick of celery was a bit off, but she could see how it might be something the Doctor would wear.

The fifth Doctor turned an irritated glare on the detective, while Molly's Doctor frowned, staring at the vegetable in question. "Yeah... brave choice, celery, but fair play to me, not a lot of men can carry off a decorative vegetable."

The fifth Doctor looked at his future self, baffled, but before he could comment further, the TARDIS console beeped insistently. The past Doctor looked at it, then turned back to his future self. "Look, I don't have time for this. There's something wrong with my TARDIS, and if I've got to do something about it. You," he ordered the Doctor, "stay with her, make sure she's alright, while I try to sort this bloody thing out."

The Doctor, her Doctor, gave Molly an anxious glance, then turned back to his former self. "Actually, if it's all the same Doctor, I think I'll be more help by the console. Sherlock, take care of Molly."

He followed his former self to the console, while Sherlock came to Molly's side, looking carefully into her eyes, critically analyzing her dilated pupils. "The Doctor's right, you really should be resting," he told her.

Molly couldn't help but smirk. "Here's a new one, you playing nursemaid," she joked. "Wasn't it usually me cleaning you up after some fight or another?"

Sherlock smirked. "Enough distractions, Molly," he chided. "You're concussed, you need to rest. Just once, listen to the people trying to help you." He gave her a meaningful look, and she remembered, over a year ago, saying almost the same exact thing to him.

She sighed. "Alright, fine, but let's see if the Doctor – sorry, Doctors – need help first."

The two Time Lords – two versions of the same Time Lord – were working worriedly on the console. "That's a paradox," the fifth Doctor was saying. "Could blow a hole in the space-time continuum the size of..." he trailed off as his future self swung the monitor around so he could see. "Well, actually, the exact size of... Belgium. That's a bit undramatic, isn't it? Belgium?"

Molly's Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver out his jacket, offering it to his past self. "Need this?"

The past Doctor shook his head. "Nah, I'm fine."

The current Doctor snorted, putting the screwdriver back in his coat. "Oh no, of course," he said drily, "you mostly went hands free, didn't you, like 'eh, I'm the Doctor, I can save the universe using a kettle and some string, and look at me, I'm wearing a vegetable'."

Even through her discomfort, Molly couldn't suppress a snort of amusement. "With your ego, you think you'd be singing his praises, not putting him down."

The Doctor shrugged. "Eh, you've got to be able to poke fun at yourself."

The fifth Doctor let out an annoyed huff. Sherlock turned away from Molly to face the two Time Lords. "What you're saying is that two TARDIS, two versions of the same TARDIS, on different points on their timestream, have collided and the ensuing paradox will tear a hole in the fabric of time?"

Molly's Doctor nodded. "Yeah, basically."

The past Doctor looked at Sherlock with surprise. "Clever. So who are you, then?"

Molly answered before Sherlock could, straightening and saying, "I'm Molly Hooper, and he's Sherlock Holmes. We're the Doctor's... er, your companions, in the future."

The fifth Doctor's eyes narrowed as he took in Molly's posture and outfit. "Interesting," he said quietly. "You're a soldier, aren't you? I can tell." Molly wasn't sure, but she thought she heard a tint of disapproval in his tone. Molly's Doctor shot him a quick, warning glance.

She tensed, holding her head high. "Of a sort, yes," she told him coolly.

The Time Lord just nodded slightly. "Right." Molly couldn't help but feel he didn't like her very much. She continued to glare evenly at the past Doctor, but before he could say anything further, a low warning bell sounded from the console. The past Doctor's eyes widened. "The cloister bell!"

Molly's Doctor looked surprised for a moment, then hurried to the console. "Yep, right on time. That's my cue."

He started fiddling with dials and levers while the fifth Doctor looked worriedly at the monitor. "In this limit," he said anxiously, "we're gonna generate a black hole strong enough to swallow the entire universe!"

Molly's Doctor grimaced. "Yeah... that's my fault, actually. I was rebuilding the TARDIS, forgot to put the shields back up. Like Sherlock said, our TARDISes... well, the same TARDIS, different voyages in the same time stream, collided and wurp, there ya go, end of the universe, butterfingers, but, don't worry, I know exactly how this all works out, watch..." He fiddled with a few controls, grinning in full manic Doctor force. "Venting the thermo buffer... Flooring the helmic regulator... And just to finish off, let's fire those zyton crystals."

The past Doctor tried to pull his future self's hands away from the controls. "You'll blow up the TARDIS!" he hissed.

Molly's Doctor shrugged. "Only way out," he said.

Molly raised an eyebrow. "Is that really the best plan, Doctor?"

He turned to her with the familiar manic grin. "Ah, come on Molly Hooper, give me a little credit." She hesitated, then nodded, grinning back. He turned back to his past self. "I know, because I remembered, Doctor," he said pointedly.

The other Time Lord's eyes widened, but before he could say anything, the monitor beeped. There was a flash of light, which Molly immediately shut her eyes against, then nothing. The former Doctor looked at the monitor in surprise, a relieved smile slowly appearing on his face. "A supernova and a black hole at the exact same instant..."

Molly's Doctor grinned proudly. "Explosion cancels out implosion."

"Matter remains constant."

"Brilliant," Molly's Doctor said smugly.

The fifth Doctor smiled, giving the current Doctor a curious glance. "You really are, aren't you? You're really me? That's how you knew to explode the TARDIS, you only knew what to do because I saw you do it."

Molly's Doctor chuckled. "Wibbly wobbly..."

"...timey wimey!" they finished together. Molly couldn't help but chuckle at their excitement. Yeah, this guy was definitely the Doctor.

Suddenly, another alarm sounded from the console. Molly's Doctor bounded over to the console, working quickly on the controls. "Right! TARDISes are separating. Sorry Doctor, time's up, back to long ago." He looked up curiously at his past self. "Where are you now? Nyssa and Tegan? Cybermen and Mara and Time Lords in funny hats and the Master? Oh, he just showed up again, same as ever." Molly stiffened at the mention of the Time Lord, but the Doctor didn't seem too upset about mentioning his deceased friend. He was rather good at covering up his pain.

The fifth Doctor snorted. "Oh, no, really? Does he still have that rubbish beard?"

Molly's Doctor chuckled. "No, no beard this time. Well, a wife."

Suddenly, the past Doctor began to fade. He looked down at himself in surprise. "Oh. I seem to be off." He looked up at his future self with a smile. "What can I say? Thank you. Doctor."

Molly's Doctor nodded. "Thank you."

The fifth Doctor grinned. "I'm very welcome," he joked. He disappeared completely, but Molly's Doctor flipped a switch, bringing the past Doctor back.

He reached to grab his past self's hat, which had been left behind on the console, and handed it to him. He was wearing a huge, warm grin. "You know, I loved being you. Back when I first started at the very beginning, I was always trying to be old and grumpy and important, like you do when you're young. And then I was you. I was all bashing about and playing cricket and my voice going all squeaky when I shouted, I still do that! The voice thing, I got that from you! Oh!" He swung his leg up, putting his foot on the console to show off his converse. "And the trainers! And..." he pulled out his glasses, putting them on quick, "Snap! Cos you know what, Doctor? You were my Doctor."

The fifth Doctor smiled. "To days to come."

Molly's Doctor smiled warmly back. "All my love to long ago."

"Good luck, Doctor, to you and your companions." The fifth Doctor's gaze flicked briefly to Molly, and once again she couldn't shake the feeling he didn't like her. What was that about?

The fifth Doctor faded again, leaving the Doctor grinning fondly at the place he'd been standing. A few moments later, however, his voice echoed through the TARDIS. "Oh, Doctor? Remember to put your shields up."

The Doctor turned back to the console, flipping a few switches. Molly grinned. "That was interesting. You were a bit stuffier back then," she teased.

The Doctor chuckled. "That was nothing, you should have seen me before that." He started working on some controls. "Right, so I'm sending into the Vortex, then you, miss Hooper, need to rest."

Before Molly could argue, the TARDIS shook, throwing the Doctor off his feet. Luckily, Sherlock and Molly were already holding into the railing and were able to keep their footing. But that wasn't the weird part. The weird part was the cause - what looked like the front of a ship had crashed through the walls of the TARDIS. A loud airhorn blared from the ship. Molly stared up at the ship in shock, lost for words. The Doctor's brow furrowed, and he let out a confused, "What?" He scrambled up to his knees, looking more and more baffled. "What?!"

A life preserver ring was tossed from the ship. The Doctor picked it up, turning it over curiously. Everyone froze in shock at what it showed. On the other side, in bold black letters, was the name of the ship. _The Titanic._

The Doctor stared at it and let out a flat, "What?"

* * *

Yeah, so here's that sequel I promised. Much sooner I than I planned on posting it of course, but I think it's clear by this point that I have red restraint when it comes to this story.

I'd never seen "Time Crash" before writing this, actually, and it was interesting to see for the first time.

Right, so, not really sure where the concussion came from, but the TARDIS was shaking way worse than normal, so I figured it'd make sense if someone got hurt. I won't say much at this point, but I will say that this chapter sets the mood for the rest of the story.


	2. Voyage of the Damned: Part One

For a few moments, the Doctor, Sherlock, and Molly stared at the life preserver in silent shock. The front of the ship was still stuck through the walls of the TARDIS, and the foghorn was still blaring.

In the calmest voice she could manage, Molly said, "Er, Doctor? Please, _please_ tell me we did not just sink the Titanic."

The Doctor gaped silently at the ship, opening and closing his mouth a few times before he remembered how to move. He scrambled to his feet, hurrying to the console and adjusting a few controls. The TARDIS walls began to repair themselves, pushing the ship out as the wall knit itself back together. When it was done repairing, the Doctor sent the TARDIS into flight, landing a few moments later.

Molly blinked. "Where'd we land?"

He turned to her with a grin. "On the ship, of course." Then he frowned again. "Thing is, though, I was on the Titanic years and years back, and I think I would've noticed if we crashed into the TARDIS."

"Time can be rewritten though, right?" Molly reminded him.

He shrugged. "Yeah, but if it had I'd be remembering it now."

She looked at the door with interest. "So, there's another version of you out there?" When he nodded, she asked, "Is it you you, or another one?"

"My seventh regeneration," he told her.

Molly chuckled. "I guess today's a day for meeting Doctors then." She stood, ignoring her still-throbbing temple, and headed for the door. "Let's go, then."

"Molly, you really should be resting," the Doctor reminded her.

She glared back at him impatiently. "Doctor, I'll be fine," she said a little testily. She didn't know why his efforts to help were rubbing her the wrong way, but she just didn't feel like being fussed over. After a year of toughing it out on a desolated Earth, it just felt weird.

The Doctor hesitated, then conceded, "Alright fine, but just for a quick look, then back to the TARDIS." He and Sherlock followed Molly out of the TARDIS, stepping out into a narrow hallway. They walked down it, heading out the door out the end into a grand ballroom. People were milling around everywhere in elegant Edwardian garb, with tables set out and waiters and waitresses rushing here and there. It all seemed pretty normal, but then she noticed what looked like a red-skinned midget with red spikes hurry past. She raised an eyebrow. "I don't know about you," she said slowly, "but I'm pretty sure there weren't any aliens on the _Titanic_."

The Doctor stared after him with bemusement. "Pretty sure you're right." He headed over to a nearby window, eyebrows shooting up at what he saw. "Right," was all he said.

Curious, Sherlock and Molly craned to get a look out the window. Molly felt a rush of surprise when, instead of the sea, she saw the darkness of space outside, with stars gleaming all around. She let out a low whistle. "Well, that explains a bit."

Sherlock turned to the Doctor. "So, we're on a spaceship named after the _Titanic_" he queried.

The Doctor nodded. "Some sort of space cruiser modeled after the original, I think."

"So we're in the future?" Molly asked.

The Doctor looked back at the party with interest. "Not sure," he admitted.

Suddenly, a voice sounded from a PA announcer overhead, echoing through the ballroom. "_Attention all passengers. The _Titanic_ is now in orbit above Sol Three, also known as Earth. Population, Human. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Christmas._"

The Doctor grinned. "Ah, so it's Christmas then. Brilliant, always love a good Christmas."

Molly was quiet. Last Christmas, she, Sherlock, and Greg had been holed up in a slave headquarters out in New York, where the slaves had held a small, subdued celebration, sitting around and telling stories of Christmases past, giving thanks for the friends and family still alive. It had been a solemn affair, but one of the more hopeful days of that year.

The Doctor gave the window a final glance, then turned to his companions with a grin. "So, Molly, Sherlock, fancy sneaking into a party?"

Sherlock looked less than thrilled at the prospect, but Molly shook off her solemn thoughts and grinned. "Sure!" It'd been too long since she'd had fun; a party with the Doctor on a futuristic spaceship, one that would most likely lead to danger and adventure, would definitely be fun.

SCENEBREAK

They headed back to the TARDIS, determined to be dressed for the occasion. Sherlock grumbled a bit about attending something as mundane as a party, but when Molly reminded him that there'd almost certainly be interesting alien food to sample and machinary to investigate, he conceded.

Molly dressed in a pale gold gown almost reminiscent of Belle from "Beauty and the Beast," with paler gold opera gloves with dark floral markings, which was echoed more palely in the skirts and what little there was of the sleeves. The bodice split apart, making it look like a gold jacket covering a pale gold under-blouse, the color of her gloves. She did her hair up in a bun, clipping on an elegant gold clasp she found on the dresser. She looked in the mirror uncertainly, still a little weak and hazy from her knock to the head. It had been over a year since she'd been in a dress, and after a year of always being armed in some capacity, she felt exposed. She let out a huff, berating herself internally. _Stop it. You're not on the Master's Earth anymore, stop thinking like it._ She just wanted to enjoy the evening.

She waited a few extra minutes in the wardrobe, waiting for the headache to subside a bit, before coming out. The Doctor was in a full tux and black tie, and even Sherlock had suited up, though he still looked less than thrilled with the whole prospect. "Everyone there is bound to be exceedingly dull," he complained. "Rich, privileged, probably not an original idea in their heads."

Molly rolled her eyes, fighting back a wave of pain. "Sherlock, everyone out there's probably an alien. That should be at least a little bit interesting."

The Doctor was checking something on the monitor, brow crinkled slightly. "Looks like it's 2012, so it's probably around the time we left," he informed them.

"So I was right," Molly affirmed, "Everyone out there's gotta be alien, humans don't have space travel like this yet."

The Time Lord nodded, then grinned with excitement. "Right. To the party then!" He bounded to the door, followed by Molly and a still-reluctant Sherlock. They headed back out into the ballroom, wandering a bit. Molly stared around at the guests uneasily, a little wary. Old suspicions crept up, but she fought to keep them down. She was at a party, she planned to enjoy herself.

Eventually, the Doctor found a monitor on the wall, pulling out his sonic and giving it a quick zap. It came to life, showing a ratty-looking man sitting behind a desk, giving the camera an oily grin. "Max Capricorn Cruiseliners," he announced. "The fastest, the farthest, the best. And I should know because my name is Max." As he finished, his gold tooth glinted in the light like a cheesy movie effect, then the screen shorted out.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Fascinating," he said drily. "Sleazy salesman whose wife has obviously made him sleep on the couch for the last week, and technology any Earth TV could surpass."

Molly glared wearily at him. "Don't be an ass, Sherlock," she said testily. "Just enjoy the novelty of being in space for a bit, yeah?"

The detective glared slightly at Molly, gaze flickering quickly over the companion. "And how's your head then?" he asked pointedly.

Molly glared, trying to hide her feeling of haziness. "Fine," she growled.

The Doctor hadn't been paying attention. He'd headed over to one of the gold angel statues that were scattered around the room. Molly and Sherlock exchanged a final glare, then followed him. On closer inspection, they weren't statues at all, but some sort of metal robot, which lifted its head as the Doctor and his companions approached. When they got closer, the Doctor introduced them. "Evening. Passengers fifty seven, fifty eight, and fifty nine. Terrible memory. Remind me. You would be?"

There was a _ding_ like from a cash register, then the robot's jaw moved, and it spoke in a pre-recorded male voice. "Information. Heavenly Host supplying tourist information." Sherlock finally looked interested, his gaze scanning it up and down.

"Good, so, tell me, because I'm an idiot," the Doctor rambled on, "where are we from?"

The angel _dinged_ again and replied, "Information. The Titanic is en route from the planet Sto in the Cassavalian Belt. The purpose of the cruise is to experience primitive cultures." Molly raised an eyebrow at the "primitive cultures" bit – humans weren't all that far behind this kind of technology.

"So why name the ship after the _Titanic_?" Molly asked the angel host. "Who thought of that?"

"Information. It was chosen as the most famous vessel of the planet Earth."

Molly raised an eyebrow. "And did anyone bother to check _why_ it was famous?" she asked pointedly.

"Information. All designations are chosen by Mister Max Capricorn, president of Max – Max – Max –" The host began to short out, twitching and rising in voice pitch.

The Doctor frowned, starting to pull out his screwdriver. "Ooo, bit of a glitch," he noted. Before he could do anything, however, a steward hurried over, shooing the travelers away from the host. "It's all right, sir, we can handle this," he assured the Doctor. Two more officers came over to help him, switching the host off before working to drag it away. "Software problem, that's all. Leave it with us, sir. Merry Christmas." He gave a hurried bow, then scurried away, looking nervous.

Sherlock watched him go with interest. "He's lying," he said bluntly. "They have no idea what's causing this, his bosses are ordering to cover it up, and since he's nearly been fired once already today, he's got little choice but to do as he's told. More importantly, this has happened before, several times today in fact."

Molly didn't even bother to ask how he'd figured this all out – a year had given her complete confidence in the detective's deductions. "Right, so looks like Max Capricorn's Cruiseliners has got something to hide." She could feel excitement beginning to build. This would probably end up being dangerous, but a different kind of dangerous than the Year, the wild, fun, running-for-your-life-while-breathless-laughing kind of dangerous. She'd missed that.

The Doctor stared after the officers with interest, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Right." Then he turned back to his companions. "Well, let's do a bit more mingling, see what we can find out, eh?"

SCENEBREAK

They wandered through the party, mingling here and there, until they noticed a rich-looking man crash into a waitresses, sending the dishes she was carrying crashing to the ground. Rather than apologize, he sneered at her, snapping, "For Tov's sake, look where you're going. This jacket's a genuine Earth antique."

The woman dipped her head hurriedly. "I'm sorry, sir," she said quietly.

The man growled, "You'll be sorry when it comes off your wages, sweetheart." He shook his head with disgust. "Staffed by idiots. No wonder Max Capricorn's going down the drain." The man turned and stormed off, leaving the woman alone to clean up the mess.

The Doctor and Molly went to help her, while Sherlock watched after the man with interest. After a few moments, he went off, presumably to get more information. "Here, let us help," Molly said with a smile. They helped gather up the clutter.

"Thank you, ma'am," the woman said, smiling nervously. "I can manage."

"Never said you couldn't," the Doctor said easily. "I'm the Doctor, by the way, and this is Molly Hooper."

"Astrid, sir," the waitress said quietly. "Astrid Peth."

The Doctor grinned brightly at her, straightening after they finished cleaning up the dishes. "Nice to meet you, Astrid Peth. Merry Christmas."

She finally gave him a real smile. "Merry Christmas, sir," she said warmly.

"Just Doctor, not sir," the Time Lord insisted.

Astrid chuckled, then asked, "You enjoying the cruise?" she asked curiously.

"Well enough, yeah," Molly said, though she still had that feeling of wariness. "The ship is gorgeous."

Astrid nodding, looking at the two warily. "Yes, the _Titanic_'s maiden voyage, a great place for a young couple to travel."

Molly looked at her with confusion, her eyes widening as she realized what Astrid meant. "Oh no, no no no, not like that," she said quickly.

"No, we're not together, no," the Doctor said almost at the same time. "No, Molly, Sherlock and I have been traveling together a bit now, decided to see the universe. What about you, though? Long way from home, the Planet Sto."

Astrid let out a huff, glaring ruefully at the tables behind her. "Doesn't feel that different. I spent three years working at the spaceport diner, traveled all the way here and I'm still waiting on tables."

"What, can't you pop out when the ship, er, makes port or whatever?" Molly asked. She wasn't sure what the term was for a spaceship verses a sea ship, but the analogy worked.

The waitress shook her head. "We're not allowed. They can't afford the insurance." She sighed, looking longingly at the window. "I just wanted to try it, just once. I used to watch the ships heading out to the stars and I always dreamt of." Then she looked down, adding hastily, "It sounds daft." Molly felt a pang of sympathy for the girl. She thought about all the wonderful adventures she'd had on the TARDIS, and she couldn't blame Astrid for wanting more than her mundane life. There was way too much to see to just sit around on one planet.

The Doctor seemed to agree. "You dreamt of another sky," he said sympathetically. "New sun, new air, new life. A whole universe teeming with life. Why stand still when there's all that life out there?"

Astrid looked a bit embarrassed at being read that easily. "So, you travel a lot?" she asked hastily.

Molly grinned. "Oh yeah, all the time. We go everywhere and anywhere, and more often than not we end up in the worst trouble possible. It's great."

"Just for fun," the Doctor added. "Well, that's the plan. Never quite works, like Molly said."

Astrid smiled wistfully. "Must be rich, though."

The Doctor shook his head. "Haven't got a penny." Astrid looked at him curiously, so he explained, "Stowaways, all of us."

Astrid's eyes widened. "Kidding?"

"Nope," Molly said with a grin. "Like we said, we get in trouble a lot."

The waitress looked like she didn't know whether to believe them or not. "I should report you," she said warily.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Go on then," he dared her.

She hesitated a moment, then grinned conspiratorially. "I'll get you lot drinks on the house," she told them. Astrid turned and hurried off, presumably towards the kitchens.

Molly smiled, watching her go. "Glad to know there's one decent, non-stuffy person on board," she joked to the Doctor.

The Doctor grinned. "Yeah, there's always a person like that around, you just gotta dig a bit, that's all."

She shook her head. "Always the optimist, Doctor."

The Doctor frowned slightly at her word choice, concern flashing in his eyes. Before Molly could ask him what was wrong, however, they were distracted by the sound of cruel laughter. They turned to see some elegantly-dressed people laughing at a new couple who had entered. They were dark-skinned, rather large, and dressed in gaudy purple, ruffled outfits. They glared resentfully at the people laughing at them, then turned and headed off to sit at their own table. Molly felt a pang of sympathy. She and the Doctor got up and headed off to join them.

As they got nearer, they could hear the man tell the woman, "Just ignore them."

The Doctor looked over at the laughers. "Something's tickled them," he said lightly.

The woman glared back at them. "They told us it was fancy dress," she explained ruefully. "Very funny, I'm sure."

"They're just picking on us because we haven't paid," the man assured the woman. He turned back to the Doctor and Molly. "We won our tickets in a competition."

"I had to name the five husbands of Joofie Crystalle in By the Light of the Asteroid," the woman said proudly. "Did you ever watch By the Light of the Asteroid?"

The Doctor looked thoughtful. "Is that the one with the twins?" he asked.

"That's it," the woman confirmed. "Oh, it's marvelous."

"But we're not good enough for that lot," the man said resentfully. "They think we should be in steerage."

The Doctor looked thoughtfully at the laughing snobs, a mischievous light glinting in his eyes. "Well, can't have that, can we?" he said meaningfully. Molly grinned, knowing he was up to something. The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver discreetly, shielding it from the toffs' view as he turned it on. A few moments' later, the cork on the champagne bottle on the toffs' table popped out, spraying them all with alcohol. Molly grinned triumphantly as they shrieked.

The couple looked at him with wide eyes. "Did you do that?" the woman asked with wonder.

The Doctor shrugged, putting his sonic screwdriver back in his jacket. "Maybe."

The woman grinned. "We like you," she said warmly.

"We do," the man agreed. He stuck out a hand to shake, first to the Doctor, then to his companion. "I'm Morvin Van Hoff," he introduced himself. "This is my good woman, Foon."

"Hello," the Doctor said with a grin, "I'm the Doctor, and this is Molly Hooper."

"Oh, I'm going to need a Doctor, time I've finished with that buffet," Foon joked. She offered him something off her plate. "Have a buffalo wing. They must be enormous, these buffalo. So many wings."

Before the Doctor could correct her, the voice sounded over the intercom again. "_Attention please. Shore leave tickets Red Six Seven now activated. Red Six Seven._"

"Red Six Seven. That's us." Foon turned to the Doctor. "Are you Red Six Seven?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Might as well be," he said.

Morvin and Foon stood, the Doctor and Molly following suit. "Come on, then, " Morvin said with a grin. "We're going to Earth."

* * *

Yay, another chapter. I would've posted it last night (more like this morning actually) when I finished it, but I was at an overnight lock-in at my skating rink, and for some reason for that one whole night the internet decided to stop working. -_- But it was fun, it is every year, I got to hang out with all of my skating friends, organizing scavenger hunts for the little kids, playing hide and seek (where our team found an epic hiding place, thank you very much), and I got to hang out with my Whovian skaters friends, one of which is still on the Martha era, so we showed her and a non-Whovian "Blink" and freaked ourselves out. Then we showed the non-Whovian an episode with Jack Harkness, which I think was a big selling point for her. XD Sorry, rambling, but it was fun.

Anyway, sorry for going on about the dress so long, I don't even like clothes, but I am a very visual writer, and I like knowing what my characters are wearing so I can imagine them going through a scene. I made up most of the dress, but here's a picture of what I meant about the bodice splitting, if it didn't make sense (remove the spaces) : www. coolspotters dotcom /clothing/penny-rose-elizabeth-swanns-marriage-dre ss


	3. Voyage of the Damned: Part Two

As they made their way over to the group departing for Earth, Sherlock re-joined them. "Max Capricorn's business is failing," he informed them. "They've lost a great deal of their investors, and talk is the board wants to remove Max from the operation. This new ship, and the others they've built, haven't brought in as much revenue as planned. The angel hosts malfunctioning seems to be an inconvenience to them compared to everything else."

The Doctor nodded thoughtfully. "Something's definitely going on here," he noted. "Maybe we'll find some answers on Earth."

While Molly explained their impromptu trip to Earth to Sherlock, Astrid came up to the Doctor carrying three glasses on a tray. "I got you those drinks," she told him.

The Doctor's eyes lit up, clearly hit by an idea. "And I got you a treat," he told her. "Come on." He started to lead her towards the departing group, Molly and Sherlock following. They walked up to the man checking everyone in.

"Red Six Seven departing shortly," he announced.

The Doctor held up the psychic paper for the man to see. "Red Six Seven, party of four," he told the man. After getting a curt nod and four teleportation bracelets, he led his companions and Astrid to the other departees.

Astrid tried to pull back, her eyes wide. "I'll get the sack," she hissed.

"Brand new sky," the Doctor reminded her.

"And what have you got to lose?" Molly prompted, turning back from Sherlock. "A job you hate? If you do, we'll drop you off somewhere you can find a new one. We have our own ship, remember?"

Astrid hesitated, then grinned, nodding in thanks. As Molly introduced her to Sherlock, the man who gave them the bracelets came over. He was older, with a sort of bookish, schoolteacher look to him. "To repeat, I am Mister Copper, the ship's historian," he introduced himself "and I shall be taking you to old London town in the country of UK, ruled over by good King Wenceslas." Molly blinked in surprise, and Sherlock let out a snicker. The historian continued, "Now, human beings worship the great god Santa, a creature with fearsome claws, and his wife Mary. And every Christmas Eve, the people of UK go to war with the country of Turkey. They then eat the Turkey people for Christmas dinner like savages." Molly was barely holding back laughter at this point, and Sherlock had rolled his eyes and was now completely ignoring the man's words, instead focusing on his appearance and whatever else he could use to deduce him.

The Doctor stared at the man, brow furrowed in bafflement. He raised his hand slightly, saying, "Excuse me. Sorry, sorry, but, er, where did you get all this from?"

The man drew himself up proudly. "Well, I have a first class degree in Earthonomics." Sherlock started to open his mouth, but Molly elbowed him sharply. After a bit of a glaring contest, Sherlock conceded, keeping silent. Copper, oblivious, went to activate their teleportation bracelets. "Now, stand by."

"And me! And me!" They looked over to see the spiky red midget from before rushing over, holding up his pass. "Red Six Seven."

Molly raised an eyebrow. "Wait, you're coming to Earth too?" The human-looking aliens were fine, but a little red man with spikes would stick out like a sore thumb. Humans weren't supposed to know about aliens yet.

The Doctor seemed to share her concerns. "But, er, hold on, hold on." He turned to the alien. "What was your name?"

"Bannakaffalatta," the alien supplied in a high-pitched tone.

"Okay, Bannakaffalatta." He turned to Mr. Copper, reminding him, "But it's Christmas Eve down there. Late night shopping, tons of people. He's like a talking conker. No offence, but you'll cause a riot because the streets are going to be packed with shoppers and parties and - "

Without warning, the bracelets were activated, and they were transported into the middle of London. The Doctor trailed off as they realized that the street was completely deserted. The Time Lord blinked in surprise and let out a little, "Oh."

Molly stiffened, hand going automatically for her hip, where she'd kept a gun during the Year. She'd never had to use it on a person, but it was good for hunting, as they often went days or weeks between slave headquarters and they'd had to eat somehow. She knew the Doctor hated guns, and she hoped she never had to use it on anyone, but it gave her a sense of comfort, and it was great for intimidation. She hated how exposed she felt without it, in a ball gown that was gorgeous but totally useless for running.

Sherlock too had stiffened, and was glancing around furtively, eyes dark with suspicion. "Something's wrong," he said in a low voice. "The street's been uninhabited all night, there should be massive crowds."

Molly hated the initial, small, insecure, fearful thought that popped into her head. _What if the Master's back?_

Mr. Copper didn't seem to see anything wrong. He handed all of the departees cards, telling them, "Now, spending money. I have a credit card in Earth currency if you want to by trinkets, or stockings, or the local delicacy, which is known as beef. But don't stray too far, it could be dangerous. Any day now they start boxing."

The companion looked around anxiously, growing more uneasy about the whole thing. "It's Christmas night, the street should be filled. There should be at least _someone_ here. Something's definitely wrong."

"But it's beautiful," Astrid breathed. She was staring around the street with eyes wide with wonder, a wide, warm smile on her face.

The Doctor looked at her with surprise, smiling, "Really? Do you think so? It's just a street. The pyramids are beautiful, and New Zealand."

"But it's a different planet," the waitress said, letting out a thrilled giggle. "I'm standing on a different planet! There's concrete and shops. Alien shops. Real alien shops!" She looked up at the dark, cloudy sky overhead. "Look, no stars in the sky. And it smells. It stinks! Oh, this is amazing. Thank you!"

Molly looked at the thrilled alien with surprise. She looked around uncertainly, taking in the street around her. It was just like any other street, with houses lined up, houses and sidewalks and streetlamps, with everything lightly dusted with snow. It was just an ordinary London street. Desolate of people, abandoned, potentially dangerous. But where she saw danger, Astrid saw beauty. She felt a rush of surprise. Had she really grown so cynical that she couldn't see beauty in the universe? Had she really changed that much?

The Doctor looked at Astrid with a smile. "Yeah? Come on then, let's have a look." He started off, the companions and Astrid following him.

They came upon a newstand, where the only person on the whole street stood behind the counter. He was an older man, white-haired with a beard and a red hat. Molly felt a pang of suspicion, but the man seemed friendly enough. The Doctor approached him, smiling amiably. "Hello, there. Sorry, obvious question, but where's everybody gone?"

The man chuckled. "Oh ho, scared!" he told the Time Lord.

"Right. Yes. Scared of what?"

The man looked at him curiously. "Where've you been living? London at Christmas? Not safe, is it."

Molly looked at him anxiously. "What do you mean by not safe?" She'd known something was wrong.

"Well, it's them, up above," he said, pointing up at the sky. He went to turn on the tv set on his stand, turning to a chanel showing a huge, saucer-shaped spaceship hung suspended over the street. "Look, Christmas before last we had that big bloody spaceship, everyone standing on a roof." Molly blinked. She'd been working at the morgue that day, but she remembered seeing the TV reports after. The man switched to a different chanel, the screen now displaying a star-shaped spaceship hanging in the sky. Molly recognized that one as well. "And then last year, that Christmas Star electrocuting all over the place, draining the Thames. It's been like this ever since. No one stays around London for Christmas. So, everybody's scarpered. Gone to the country. All except me and Her Majesty."

As if to confirm his words, the announcer spoke from the TV. "_Her Majesty the Queen has confirmed that she'll be staying in Buckingham Palace throughout the festive season to show the people of London, and the world, that there's nothing to fear._"

The man looked at the TV with a smile. "God bless her. We stand vigil."

The Doctor grinned. "Well, between you and me, I think her Majesty's got it right. Far as I know, this year, nothing to worry about -"

He was cut off again as their bracelets activated, sending them all back to the _Titanic._ Molly blinked in surprise as she realized where she now was, feeling a pang of sympathy for the man they'd been talking to. They'd vanished right in front of him, just as they were assuring him that there wouldn't be any aliens that year.

The Doctor glared irritably at Copper. "I was in mid-sentence," he complained.

Copper seemed worried about something. He hurried to collect all the teleportation bracelets as two officers approached. One of them told the group, "Apologies, ladies and gentlemen, and Bannakaffalatta. We seem to have suffered a slight power fluctuation. If you'd like to return to the festivities. And on behalf of Max Capricorn Cruiseliners, free drinks will be provided."

The guests went off back to the party, grumbling a bit about the visit being cut short. The only one who seemed happy was Astrid. "That was the best," she sighed happily. "The best!"

The Doctor ignored her, staring after the officer with a furrowed brow. He followed the man, asking in a low tone, "What sort of power fluctuation?"

SCENEBREAK

The Doctor and companions couldn't get a straight answer out of the officer, so they went off to see where else they could get information. It was the Doctor who spotted the picture frame displaying a video of Max Capricorn. He hurried over without explanation, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and his glasses, glancing around to make sure no one was watching. Molly and Sherlock followed him silently, shielding him from the view of other guests.

After a bit of sonicing on the frame, he was able to pull it back like a door, revealing the mechanics behind. He fiddled with them a bit until the frame-screen displayed a sonar radar around the ship instead. Molly froze as she noticed three little dots on the radar that she was pretty sure weren't meant to be there, getting closer and closer to the ship. Even worse was the warning flashing in red letters at the bottom of the screen - "_Shields Off-Line._"

The three turned as one to look out the nearest window. Molly blanched at what she saw – three flaming meteors heading straight for the ship.

The Doctor whirled back toward the frame, hurried fiddling with a few controls. "What're you doing?" Molly asked, glancing back worriedly at the window.

"Turning it into an intercom," the Doctor explained distractedly. He finished, turning it on, then speaking in urgently. "Is this the bridge? I need to talk to the Captain. You've got a meteoroid storm coming in west zero by north 2."

A voice, presumably that of the captain, snapped from the other end, "_Who is this?_"

"Never mind that," the Doctor said impatiently, "your shields are down. Check your scanners, Captain. You've got meteoroids coming in and now shielding."

The captain ignored his words, growling, "You have no authorisation. You will clear the comms at once."

The Doctor grew even more impatient with the captain's stuffiness. "Yeah? Just look starboard!" Molly saw a steward heading over, so she tensed, standing defensively in front of the Doctor. What she missed was the steward heading from the other direction who grabbed the Doctor from behind. She whirled around to face him, but was grabbed by the first steward, who pinned her arms behind her back.

She automatically brought her head back into his chin, but as the steward released her, she was hit with a fresh wave of pain in her head. As Sherlock fended off the steward and the Doctor shouted warnings to the guests, Molly sunk to the ground with a hiss of pain, clutching her head and trying to block out the sharp pain shooting through her head. Everyone was shouting, the Doctor and Sherlock, and the rich snob who'd knocked into Astrid earlier, but she couldn't make out the words over her throbbing head, just a general thrum of noise.

Suddenly, the ship gave a massive shudder. Molly stumbled slightly, but since she was already on the ground, she wasn't disturbed much by the hit. She stayed crouched by the wall while everyone else was thrown off-balance. The ship convulsed wildly, tables and chairs sent tumbling, sparks flying, fire rolling in from the doors, the ceiling collapsing. There were two more hits, and the whole room exploded into chaos, everyone fleeing for their lives.

Then, everything went still. Molly lifted her head slowly, feeling more woozy and hazy then ever. Some of the furniture and curtains were still on fire, which was too bright for her to look at very long, but the ship had stopped shaking, and the only sound left was of fire crackling and people whimpering. Molly tried to stand, but a sharp rush of pain convinced her otherwise, forcing a whimper of pain from her.

She saw the Doctor crouched with Astrid a few paces away, and Sherlock with the steward who'd tried to take Molly. They both hurried to the companion's side, crouching beside her. The Doctor's eyes were dark with worry. "You alright?" he asked anxiously.

Molly fought back the pain, forcing a slight grin. "Yeah, I'm fine, just fell." She tried to stand again, but the pain forced her to the ground as she let out a slight hiss.

Sherlock didn't look convinced. "You went down before the collision happened. You used your head to fend off the guard, you must have hit the same place you hit your head earlier. You've just gone and made it worse."

The companion let out a slight growl, feeling irritated with Sherlock's usual lack of tact. "It wasn't exactly the plan," she grumbled.

The Doctor looked at her anxiously, looking carefully at her eyes. "Right, you need to rest," he said firmly. "I mean it this time."

Through the pain, Molly managed to glare pointedly at him. "Yes, 'cause I'm sure we'll be perfectly safe just sitting around here 'til we magically get saved. I'll be fine, Doctor, just give me a minute."

The Time Lord looked unconvinced, but before he could argue further, the steward who'd grabbed him got shakily to his feet and cleared his throat. "Er, everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, Bannakaffalatta. I must apologise on behalf of Max Capricorn Cruiseliners. We seem to have had a small collision."

From the spot where he and Foon had been crouching, Morvin let out a disbelieving snort. "Small?" he repeated mockingly.

The rich snob from before snapped, "Do you know how much I paid for my ticket?" Molly fought the urge to storm over to him and slug him in the face – pain was making her irritable, and he was being exceptionally annoying.

"If I could have silence, ladies, gentlemen. Please." The grumbling and whimpering continued until the steward grew impatient and snapped, "Quiet!" Everyone fell silent. "Thank you." He hesitated before continuing. He seemed rather shaken by the whole thing, but determined to do his job. "I'm sure Max Capricorn Cruiseliners will be able to reimburse you for any inconvenience, but first I would point out that we're very much alive. She is, after all, a fine, sturdy ship. If you could all stay here while I ascertain the exact nature of the situation." Looking nervous, he went to check a nearby door.

The Doctor cried out, "Don't open it!" but it was too late. The door was opened, revealing space outside rather than the rest of the ship, and the steward was pulled out into the vacuum of space. Molly had to hold onto the edge of the stage to keep from being pulled out as well. The suction continued until the Doctor managed to sonic the frame, re-establishing the oxygen shield.

The Time Lord turned back to the people left in the ballroom. "Everyone all right? Sherlock? Astrid? Molly?"

The former pathologist nodded, suppressing a groan. Sherlock nodded as well, and Astrid let out a small, "Yeah."

The Time Lord turned to the others. "Foon? Morvin? Mister Copper? Bannakaffalatta?" They all nodded, letting the Doctor turn to the last man in the room, the annoying snob. "You, what was your name?"

"Rickston Slade," he supplied.

"You all right?" the Doctor checked.

"No thanks to that idiot," Slade sneered, glaring at the door the steward had opened.

Molly felt a rush of anger. "You mean the guy that just died?" she asked in a low growl. "Have a bit of respect for the dead, all right?"

"All right, so he's dead," Slade said impatiently. "That just makes him a dead idiot."

Molly couldn't believe the nerve of this guy. "Listen you - "

"All right, calm down," the Doctor cut her off hastily. "Just stay still, all of you. Hold on."

Astrid looked around with wide eyes. "What happened? How come the shields were down?"

The Doctor frowned, his eyes shadowed. "I don't think it was an accident," he said darkly. Molly remembered the captain's refusal to listen to the Doctor's warnings and wondered if he was right. Had the captain intentionally wrecked his own ship? Why?

While Sherlock stayed with Molly, the Doctor and Astrid were looking out the hatch into the darkness of space. Astrid seemed subdued as she asked, "How many dead?"

We're alive," the Doctor reminded her. "Just focus on that. I will get you out of here, Astrid, I promise." She was still staring at space, trembling slightly, so he put a hand on her shoulder. "Look at me," he said gently. Still wide-eyed, she turned to look at him. "I promise." She hesitated, then nodded, accepting his word. "Good. Now, if we can get to Reception, I've got a spaceship tucked away. We can all get on board and – oh."

Molly froze, the last word setting off warning bells in her head. Already dreading the answer, she asked, "What?"

He looked back at her with a anxious, baffled expression partial to the Time Lord. "Er, remember how we parked the TARDIS in the hall?"

A pause. "Please tell me you're joking."

He shook his head. "Nope. She's drifting just there." He pointed it out for Astrid to see.

The waitress wrinkled her nose. "What, that little blue box? That's a spaceship?"

"Oi, don't knock it," the Time Lord said defensively.

Astrid raised an eyebrow. "It's a bit small," she pointed out.

The Doctor sighed. "A bit distant," he added wistfully. "Trouble is, once it's set adrift, it's programmed to lock onto the nearest center of gravity, and that would be the Earth."

Molly felt a rush of dread. "So basically, we're stuck."

The Doctor nodded, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "For the moment, yeah."

Molly fought another groan, but at the same time, an odd sense of excitement was building up in her. True, they were in danger, stranded from the TARDIS, on a spaceship about to crash into Earth and destroy it, but it felt so different from the year on that desolate Earth. She had the Doctor, and Sherlock, and a sonic screwdriver, and while that wasn't much better odds than she'd had during the Year, this time there was a hope in fighting, and a hope of winning. This wasn't a war, this was an adventure, and she didn't realize until now just how much she'd missed them.

Now all they had to do was figure out what to do next.

* * *

Alright, before I say anything intelligent and constructive, allow me my brief moment of freak-out:

...

...

WILFWILFWILFIGOTTOWRITEWILFYAYWILFWILFWILF!

...

And back to business. :D But seriously, I'm going to quote Tumblr here and say that no matter which companion you happen to dislike - whether you've got issues with Rose being clingy, with Martha not being sensitive about Rose, with Donna for being loud and bossy, etc., etc., - rarely do you ever find a Whovian who doesn't love the wonder that is Wilf. And yes, since I cut the End of Time, that means I nixed all the Doctor/Wilf father/son scenes from there, but don't worry! I'll find a way to include that relationship, 'cause it's just too cute to cut, damnit.

As for the actual story, yes, I've brought Molly's concussion back, the ship has been crashed into, and now the real fun begins. As for whether I'm letting Astrid live or not, as I know some of you are wondering, and whether anything else will be changed by Molly and Sherlock's involvement - I dunno. I'm working this one out as I go. What I do know is, if I keep going at this rate, this story's going to be a four-parter. So there's that to look forward to.

**BloodLily16: **Ooo, sounds fun! :)


	4. Voyage of the Damned: Part Three

The Doctor went back to the frame, speaking into the comm. "Deck twenty two to the bridge. Deck twenty two to the bridge. Is anyone there?"

There was a pause, then a new voice came from the other end. "This is the bridge," a quiet voice said.

The Time Lord grinned triumphantly. "Oh hello, sailor! Good to hear you. What's the situation up there?"

"_We've got air. The oxygen field is holding, but the Captain, he's dead._" The sailor hesitated, then continued in a shaky tone, "_He did it. I watched while he took down the shields. There was nothing I could do. I tried. I did try._" His voice had faded into a fearful whimper.

"All right. Just stay calm," the Doctor said calmly. It didn't surprise him that much that the captain had sabotaged the ship – the only question was, why? "Tell me your name. What's your name?"

In a slightly calmer tone, the sailor told him, "_Midshipman Frame._"

"Nice to meet you, sir," the Doctor greeted. "What's the state of the engines?"

"_They're, er... hold on..._" The sailor trailed off as he went to check. As he did, the Doctor heard a sharp gasp of pain from the other line.

The Doctor felt a pang of concern. "Have you been injured?" he asked. It was bad enough that Molly was hurt and there was nothing, for the moment, that he could do about it. He didn't need someone all the way on the bridge being injured without help.

"_I'm all right,_" the midshipman groaned unconvincingly. There was a pause, then a gasp. "_Oh, my Vot. They're cycling down._"

He paused. _Not good. Definitely not good._ "That's a nuclear storm drive, yes?"

"_Yeah._"

"The moment they're gone we lose orbit."

The midshipman understood immediately. "_The planet._"

"Oh, yes," the Time Lord confirmed grimly. "If we hit the planet, the nuclear storm explodes and wipes out life on Earth." He ran a hand through his wild hair, mind racing as he tried to figure out a way to get everyone through this. "Midshipman, I need you to fire up the engine containment field and feed it back into the core."

"_This is never going to work,_" Frame protested.

"Trust me, it'll keep the engines going until I can get to the bridge," the Doctor assured him. He turned the comm off and turned back to the survivors. Sherlock and Astrid were crouched beside Molly, but Morvin, Foon, Copper, and Slade were all standing, staring wide-eyed at the Doctor.

"We're going to die!" Foon whimpered.

"Are you saying someone's done this on purpose?" Copper asked fearfully.

"We are. We're going to die."

Everyone was talking at once, running over top of each other. The Doctor finally had enough. "Okay, okay. Shush, shush, shush, shush, shush." The survivors all fell silent, Slade glaring, everyone else wary. Molly looked up from her spot by the wall, brow still scrunched slightly in pain.

He was getting really worried about his companion. The head injury was a concern, clearly, but worse was the fact tat she kept refusing help. She was clearly in pain, but she seemed almost angry whenever someone tried to help her. It was different from the shyness and not wanting to be a burden from before. She seemed jumpy, defensive, angry. He had no idea what was causing it, but whatever it was was making her hold in the pain. She was concussed, and he couldn't tell how badly because she was being stubborn and trying to cover it up. He held back an annoyed growl. He wished there was something he could do for her, but right now there was nothing, and that annoyed him to no end. For now, Sherlock would have to look out for her.

The Time Lord shook off his worries about his companion, then turned back to the other survivors. "First things first. One. We are going to climb through this ship. B. No. Two. We're going to reach the bridge. Three. Or C. We're going to save the Titanic. And, coming in a very low four, or D, or that little iv in brackets they use in footnotes, why. Right then, follow me. Sherlock, Astrid, help Molly."

He turned and started to leave, but Slade's annoyed voice called after him. "Hang on a minute. Who put you in charge and who the hell are you anyway?"

The Doctor felt the anger that'd been building since the TARDIS drifting off reach a boiling point. He had an injured companion, a ship about to crash into the Earth and blow it up, a huddled, terrified group of survivors he had to keep safe, countless people already dead on his watch, and a missing TARDIS. And now this arrogant man, this self-important human, had the gall to question him, to act like his questions were more important than the lives of everyone on board.

The Doctor could feel the Oncoming Storm simmering underneath as he turned and glared at the man. "I'm the Doctor," he growled out, standing completely straight and glaring the man straight in the eyes. "I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I'm nine hundred and three years old and I'm the man who's going to save your lives and all six billion people on the planet below."

Everyone stared at him with wide eyes. He focused on the dumbfounded Slade as he growled, "You got a problem with that?"

Slade tried to cover up his embarrassment, straightening his shoulders as he admitted, "No."

The Doctor glared at him for a moment, making sure there weren't going to be any more outbursts, before growling, "In that case, allons-y!"

SCENEBREAK

Molly reluctantly accepted the help of Sherlock and Astrid as they headed through the ship. She felt okay to stand now, but her head still felt kind of hazy, and there was still a throbbing pain in her head where she'd been hit. Sherlock and Astrid stayed on either side of her, supporting her and letting her lean on their weight. Molly was still feeling iffy about accepting help, but though she didn't say it, she was grateful for their support – she wasn't sure she'd be walking as well without it at the moment.

As they ascended up a staircase, Mr. Copper pointed out, "Rather ironic, but this is very much in the spirit of Christmas. It's a festival of violence. They say that human beings only survive depending on whether they've been good or bad. It's barbaric."

Molly chuckled slightly. "Seriously? Where did you even hear that? Humans don't do anything of the sort, I should know." The headache was making her a little less choosy with her words.

Mr. Copper looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?"

Without looking back at them, the Doctor explained, "Molly and Sherlock are humans, straight off Earth. And Molly's right, Christmas is a time of, of peace and thanksgiving and..." He trailed off, then shook his head. "What am I on about? My Christmases are always like this."

The companion let out a snort. "Let me guess, that stuff the guy at the newsstand was talking about, that was all you?"

"I didn't _cause_ any of it, I just got mixed up in it," the Time Lord defended himself. He was a few paces ahead of everyone, so he reached the landing before they did. As they got there, he was pulling some debris off one of the angel hosts. "We've got a Host. Strength of ten." He looked back at the rest of the group. "If we can mend it, we can use it to fix the rubble."

Morvin approached the host. "We can do robotics," he said, gesturing to his wife. "Both of us."

"We work on the milk market back on Sto," Foon added. "It's all robot staff."

The Doctor nodded and told them, "See if you can get it working. Molly, Astrid, you stay with them, help them if they needed." After that, he turned to the rest of the group. "Let's have a look." He led them further up the staircase, leaving the Van Holfs, Astrid, and Molly alone with the angel host.

SCENEBREAK

As they worked, they could hear the Doctor and the others trying to clear a way through to the next room a few feet above. Molly knew the Time Lord had left her with the Van Hoffs to let her rest a bit, but she was finding it hard to mind, now that she was getting the chance to sit again. She and Astrid helped pass the Van Hoffs tools or held mechanical parts in place while they worked on the host.

They could hear Slade sneer above, "Thing is, how are Mister and Mrs Fatso going to get through that gap?" Molly tensed with anger, feeling a surge of fury on behalf of the Van Hoffs. They seemed really nice, and Slade had no right to judge.

Foon had clearly heard Slade's comment. She looked down uncomfortably, fiddling absentmindedly with some mechanics. Morvin looked at her worriedly. "Hey, hey. Come on, sweetheart. Don't listen to him."

"Yeah, Slade's a right snob," Molly assured her. "If I weren't hobbling like an old woman I'd probably have punched him by now." Which wasn't how it would've been before the Year. Was that another sign of how much she'd changed? Or was she just irritable because her head felt like it'd been hit with a sledgehammer?

Foon shook her head sadly. "No, but it's all my fault, though," she said quietly. "The tickets."

"We won them fair and square," Morvin reminded her.

"I know," Foon said, her gaze darting from her husband back down to the ground. "I never told you. I dialed the competition line five thousand times. That's five thousand credits. I might as well have paid for the tickets. I've been hiding the vone bill for months now." The words tumbled out, as though she'd been holding them back for too long and was eager to get them out.

Morvin stared at her in shock. "Five thousand credits? You spent five thousand credits?" he asked incredulously. Molly wasn't sure exactly how that converted, but judging by Morvin's reaction, it was a lot.

Foon seemed seriously anxious now. "Don't hate me." Morvin blinked at her blankly a few moments, then began softly chuckling, building into full-blown laughter. Foon stared at him in shock. "What's so funny?"

"Five thousand?" Morvin repeated through his laughter.

Foon nodded warily. "We'll never pay it off."

That just made him laugh harder. "I know. I'll have to work twenty years, you mad, bloody woman."

His wife's brow furrowed in confusion. "You're not cross?" she asked warily.

"Does it matter?" Morvin asked. "Look at us." He gestured to the wrecked ship around them, still chuckling. "You drive me barmy. I don't half love you, Mrs Van Hoff. Come here." With a grin, he pulled his wife in a for a quick kiss, the two grinning at each other and rubbing noses, foreheads pressed together. Molly couldn't help but smile, warmed by the sight. Even with everything falling to hell around them, this couple found the time to be happy together.

SCENEBREAK

They returned to work, the four of them working on the host while the others worked on clearing the debris above. As they worked, Astrid asked Molly curiously, "So, you're really a human? You really live on that planet down there?" Morvin and Foon looked up, trying not to look too interested in the answer.

Molly nodded. "Yeah, Sherlock and I are human. But I don't live on Earth – well, not anymore. Not since I started traveling with him. Now I live on his ship, the TARDIS, with him and Sherlock, and we travel. We can go anywhere at all, and we've seen so many amazing places... I mean, it's dangerous too," she added as she thought about the Year, and a ship falling towards a sun, and Daleks in Manhattan. "But it's worth it. It really is."

Astrid, Foon, and Morvin listened with awe, looking wistful as she described her adventures. "It sounds wonderful," Astrid said longingly.

Molly smiled as she remembered all a year of TARDIS travel. "Yeah, it is," she agreed softly.

The waitress hesitated before asking, "And what about him? The Doctor? What's he like?"

The companion was surprised that Astrid was so interested. She could guess the cause of the interest, and while she could see why someone would find the Doctor attractive, it was a bit of an odd concept for her. She'd spent three months as the Time Lord's sister, and even though he was no longer human, that was still the way she saw him. "He's great," she told the waitress. "I owe him a lot. I didn't have any confidence when I met him, and he kind of showed me that I'm important too. He's my best friend."

"But you two aren't...?"

"No, no, not at all," Molly assured her quickly.

Astrid looked down awkwardly. "Sorry, I know it's not my place to -"

"It's fine," the companion told her with a smile. She was starting to think Astrid might be companion material – someone who was brave, who cared about other people, with a taste for adventure and seeing the stars. Maybe after this was all over, the Doctor would want to take her with them. It might be a little weird, but it'd be fun to have someone new other than Sherlock on board, someone to share in the excitement of new places with and to appreciate the traveling and the stars.

Morvin and Foon were almost finished with working on the host. "Almost done!" Morvin called up to the Doctor.

"Good, good, good," the Doctor replied distractedly. He seemed to be speaking to the sailor in the bridge again through the intercom. "Mister Frame, how's things?"

She couldn't hear the reply, but she could hear the worry in the Doctor's voice as he asked, "What is it? Are they losing air?"

A few seconds later, Morvin put the last piece into place, and the angel host thrummed to life, jerking its head up. "It's working!" he said triumphantly.

At the same time, the Doctor came bolting down the stairs. "Turn it off!" he warned wildly. Molly felt a rush of fear. Whatever Frame had told him had clearly been some sort of warning about the hosts, and they had just given it power.

"Kill, kill," the host chanted in it's eerie monotone. Without warning the metal hands snaked out and wrapped themselves around Morvin's throat. Foon gasped in horror, while Molly and Astrid worked to pry its fingers loose.

"Turn it off!" the Doctor ordered Foon.

"I can't!"

The Time Lord tried sonicing it, but to no avail. He let out a frustrated growl. "Double deadlocked." After a few moments, Molly and Astrid were able to get the host's hands off Morvin's throat. "Quickly, go upstairs!" the Time Lord ordered.

Astrid and Movin helped Molly up the stairs, Foon just behind them. They made it up to the landing with everyone else, but Molly could see the gap they'd made in the debris wasn't going to be big enough. The Doctor called from further down the stairs, "Rickston, get them through!"

"No chance!" the businessman sneered. Before the Doctor could order him again, he crawled through the hole to the other side.

"Rickston!" Mr. Copper cried angrily, but there was no reply. Molly ignored her increasing anger and tried to figure out a way to help the Van Hoffs.

"I'll never get through there," Foon whimpered.

"Yes, you can," Mr. Copper assured her. "Let me go first." He crawled through the hole, followed by Sherlock, but unlike Slade, they waited at the other end, ready to help Foon and Morvin get through. Astrid went through after them, but Molly stayed, working to clear some of the debris so the hole would be bigger, even though it was too late to do much more.

Foon tried to get through first, but the hole still wasn't big enough. "Now I'm stuck!" she gasped out.

The debris began to shift dangerously, threatening to collapse. Molly went automatically to hold up the metal beams above Foon, calling out to the people on the other side, "It's going to collapse! We need to hold it up to let her through!" Her head was pounding, but the Year had made her strong, strong enough to keep holding the metal up, for now.

She felt something else help lift the metal beams – presumably Mr. Copper and Sherlock – and Foon was able to get through. "Come on Morvin, your turn!" she called to the next Van Hoff. He started to get through, but the metal began to slide again, and he became stuck. "Guys, pull him through!" she called out to the others. She struggled to keep the beam up as Morvin was yanked through to the other side.

The Doctor hurried up the stairs, followed by the angel host. "Molly, get through!" he ordered.

She was about to protest, but she felt the beam being pulled up off her shoulders. She heard Sherlock's voice from behind the debris. "We've got it, Sherlock told her, "now come on!"

Molly moved as quickly as she could, dropping the beam and crawling under to the other side. Morvin and Foon helped her through.

As she sat, winded, she heard Astrid call out, "Doctor, come on, get through!"

Instead of coming through to the other side, the Time Lord took the dangerous option, as he did best, and turned back to the host. "Information override!" he shouted quickly. "You will tell me the point of origin of your command structure!"

Mr. Copper and Sherlock were working together to hold up the metal, Sherlock manually, Mr. Copper with a metal rod. "We can't hold it!" Copper cried as the metal beam began to slide.

The host _dinged_ before telling him, "Information. Deck thirty one."

"Thank you," the Doctor quipped before slipping under the gap. The host started to follow him, but the Doctor ordered Sherlock and Mr. Copper, "Let go!" They released the beam, which fell onto the host's head, smashing it in, killing the robot.

Molly let out a slight breath, sliding down to the ground. Now that the adrenaline was fading, her headache was making her realize just how much that had taken out of her. But for now, at least, they were safe.

* * *

Right, so, new chapter. And more Molly and Sherlock participation, though this chapter's mostly Molly. If it helps, though, Sherlock was helping the Doctor and the others clear the debris, and his help is part of the reason Morvin was able to get through the debris without the Doctor's help, that and Molly's help kept the metal a little higher, making the hole a little bigger.

Yes, for the first time this story, we get the Doctor's POV back. As you can see, he's worried about Molly, and he's not quite sure what's up with her. We'll get to more of that later.

Hopefully, only one more chapter of this, then maybe an interlude before we get to Partners in Crime! I can't wait to write Donna, she's one of my favorite companions.

**BloodLily16: **Yep! Wilf's awesome! :D


	5. Voyage of the Damned: Part Four

They reached a corridor further along in the ship, an open area clearly not meant for guests. Everything was metal, with pipes running along the ceiling. There was a trolley a few paces away, with sandwiches and other party foods laid on it. Foon noticed it, nudging her husband. "Morvin, look. Food!"

Slade rolled his eyes with a sneer. "Oh great. Someone's happy."

Morvin gave him a withering glare. "Don't have any then," he retorted.

As he and Foon made their way over, the woman turned to Molly. "Do you want anything, dear?" she asked kindly.

The companion shook her head, grimacing a little. "Nah, not really hungry." The Doctor frowned with concern. Nausea was one of the symptoms of a concussion.

The Time Lord noticed a comm connected to the wall nearby, with a blank monitor on the wall. He headed over, turning it on and connecting to the bridge. "Mister Frame, are you still there?"

After a few moments, a response finally crackled through. "_Yes, sir, but I've got Host outside. I've sealed the door._"

The Doctor frowned. This wasn't making sense. "They've been programmed to kill. Why would anyone do that?"

"_That's not the only problem, Doctor,_" Frame warned him, "_I had to use a maximum deadlock on the door, which means no one can get in. I'm sealed off. Even if you can fix the _Titanic_ you can't get to the bridge._"

The Doctor gave a frustrated groan. A deadlock seal was one of the few things his sonic screwdriver couldn't override. "Yeah, right, fine. One problem at a time." He moved onto the little information the host had given him. "What's on deck thirty one?"

Frame sounded confused by the question. "_Er, that's down below. It's nothing. It's just the Host storage deck. That's where we keep the robots._" The monitor flashed to life, displaying a map of the ship. Deck thirty one was pulled up.

The Doctor squinted at a black mark on the screen. "Well, what's that? Do you see that panel?" It was a whole room, a little black rectangle. "Black. It's registering nothing. No power, no heat, no light."

"_I've never seen it before,_" Frame admitted, sounding worried.

" One hundred percent shielded," the Time Lord observed, looking closer. "What's down there?" he wondered aloud.

"_I'll try intensifying the scanner,_" Frame offered.

"Let me know if you find anything," the Doctor told him. "And keep those engines going."

He clicked off the comm, feeling a rush of frustration. His first trip after being stuck in a wheelchair for a year, and he'd nearly gotten his little group killed. He should have realized the host were dangerous, should have put the host shorting out earlier and the ship being out together in his mind. A year out of the game had made him slow.

Astrid made her way over to him, a plate of food in hand. "Saved you some," she said with a smile. "You might be a Time King from Gaddabee but you need to eat."

The Doctor accepted it gratefully, not having realized how hungry he was until then. The Master hadn't starved him or anything, but it hadn't exactly been an all-you-can-eat buffet, and he hadn't eaten since the Valiant. "Thanks." He hesitated, then asked, "How's Molly?"

Astrid shrugged. "Worse than she lets on I think, but she seems alright to walk. Morvin and Foon are looking after her now." The couple was chatting animatedly with her, drawing a tired smile from the companion. The Doctor made a mental note to thank them later.

Which reminded him, Astrid had been helping her too. "Thanks for that, by the way."

She smiled. "No problem." There was a pause, then, "So, you look good for nine hundred and three."

The Time Lord chuckled. "You should see me in the mornings."

"Okay," she said seriously.

The Doctor looked at her in surprise, mind going momentarily blank. Before he was forced to respond, Sherlock made his way over. "You have any more information on the host?" he asked stiffly.

"Maybe," the Doctor replied. He showed Sherlock the monitor and repeated what Frame had told him. "Figure I'll have to head down and check it out."

Sherlock nodded. "Good. Then we both know Max Capricorn's hiding down there."

The Time Lord blinked at him blankly a few times, taken off guard. "...not so much, no," he admitted weakly. "What makes you say that?"

The detective smirked. "Really? Isn't it obvious?" When the Time Lord continued to look surprised, Sherlock's smirk grew. "I went looking for information earlier, remember? There were a number of knowledgable staff on board, not to mention a few concerned stockholders. Max Capricorn's business went under months ago, but before they did, the board locked Max out of his own company. The host are developed by a branch of his company, and as this is a ship, they're presumably programmed to obey a chain of command. Max being the head of that command would've been in their original programming, and even if that was overwritten it would be easy to change that back. Max has the greatest to gain and the least to lose. He has no money left to lose, and if one of his company's ships destroys the Earth, it'll bankrupt the board that fired him, if not throw them in jail. I'm betting he's giving the host their orders from deck thirty one, presumably somewhere safe from explosion."

The Doctor just stared at him a few moments, blinking in shock and trying not to look too impressed. "Yeah, well... alright, yeah, that's pretty brilliant," he admitted.

"I know," the detective replied smugly.

The Doctor felt a brief flash of irritation, and an even briefer feeling of guilt. _Is this what it's like to be around me?_ Shaking it off, he said, "Right, so, angry bankrupt billionaire crashes his own ship and stays on board. He's probably got plenty of host guarding him, but he won't be expecting anyone looking for him. Came up with this clever plan himself, probably thinks no one'll figure him out, or that there's no one left alive to. Should work in our favor, then."

Before Sherlock could reply, there was a loud _bang_ as someone tried to punch through the door. The Doctor, Astrid, and Sherlock jumped to their feet. "A host! Move! Come on!" The whole group bolted, Morvin and Foon helping Molly along as fast as they could. They turned to a side hallway, heading through the first door they came across, the Doctor sonicing it open and locking it shut behind them.

When he turned back to look at the room they were in, he froze, horror pounding in his hearts. A wide gulf stretched ahead of them, nothing but the fire of the engines below, with only a thin metal rail offering passage to the other side.

Slade stared at it with wide eyes. "Is that the only way across?" he asked with wild disbelief.

Trying to stat positive, the Doctor pointed out, "On the other hand, it is a way across."

Astrid stared at the fiery gulf with wide eyes. "The engines are open," she observed shakily.

The Doctor nodded grimly. "Nuclear storm drive," he explained. "As soon as it stops, the Titanic falls."

From his position helping support Molly, Morvin stared at the metal rail with horror. "But that thing, it'll never take our weight," he protested.

Slade glared at the couple. "You're going last, mate."

Molly looked ready to growl with anger, but before she could say anything, Sherlock stepped in, glaring at Slade with as much condensation as possible. "Actually, the most logical solution is to let them go first. The rail will be strongest then, and it'll be less likely to collapse then. Go from heaviest to lightest."

Slade snorted. "Fat chance. I'm not risking my neck so those two can live to stuff their faces."

The detective raised an eyebrow. "Mr. Rickston, when all this is over, we'll undoubtably have to talk to police about the deaths onboard. When we do, do you really want me to tell them about how you've been embezzling from your company's funds, or what it took to close your deal with Capricorn's company?" Slade's face went completely white, and for what felt like the first time, he snapped his mouth shut. The Doctor gave an amused half-smirk, impressed with the way Sherlock had handled him.

A moment later, there was the sound of metal bending and a terrified cry. Copper had stepped forward to look over the edge at the flames, and the metal had given way under his feet. Before any of them could react, he was sent tumbling over the edge into the flames below. Astrid screamed, Bannakaffalatta, Morvin, Foon, and Slade watched with horror, and Molly and Sherlock just looked on quietly, Molly sad, Sherlock with the slightest hint of regret in his eyes. The Doctor could just watch with a deep feeling of guilt. Another person he had failed.

"Oh my Vot," Morvin breathed. "That poor man."

Astrid's eyes watered. "Isn't there anything we can do?" she asked the Doctor.

The Time Lord shook his head grimly. "I'm sorry."

There was a brief moment of silence, then Sherlock turned to Morvin. "You first." Looking completely terrified, Morvin nevertheless began to make his way across the rail, slow at first, but slowly growing more confidence. A few moments later, however, the ship shook, sending him slamming down onto the rail. He just managed to avoid rolling off the side into the fiery gulf below. "Careful!" the Doctor called out in warning.

Whimpering slightly, Morvin got back to his feet, hurrying across. He finally reached the other side, letting out a slight laugh of relief. "I made it!"

The Doctor grinned, feeling a sudden burst of confidence. "Fantastic!" he cried, slipping into his former personality for a moment. "Foon, you're next, off you go!"

Looking a bit more confident now that her husband had made it across, Foon started across the rail. When she was halfway across, more banging sounded from the door behind them, hosts chanting, "Kill, kill, kill."

The Doctor hurried to the door, locking it with his sonic, then turned back to the group. "Right, Astrid, Sherlock, get Molly across, then Slade, then Bannakaffalatta."

"What about you?" Molly protested.

"I'll be there in a minute, now go!"

Molly looked ready to protest again, but Astrid and Sherlock pulled her away, hurrying her across the rail. Foon had already reached the other side, and the rail seemed to be pretty sturdy. Molly, Sherlock, and Astrid were hardly across, however, when Slade abandoned restraint and started off across the rail. "Slade, slow down!" the Doctor called out irritably.

From the other side, Morvin called, "Doctor, door on this side's locked, we need your shinning blue key thing."

The Doctor nodded. "Be there in a second. Bannakaffalatta, come on after me." He hurried across the beam, but before he was completely across, the banging from the door stopped. A deathly quiet fell.

Slade looked nervously back at the door. "Did they leave?" he asked dubiously.

The Doctor felt his blood freeze. She didn't know why they'd stopped, but he knew it couldn't be good. "Move, now!" he shouted. Molly, Astrid, and Sherlock made it to the other side, but before Slade could make it, there was a rumble from above. To the Doctor's horror, five angel hosts descended from above, their metal wings flapping and keeping them suspended. As one, they reached for the halos on their heads, which the Doctor realized were weapons.

He considered telling them to grab something to fight, but a glance at Molly told him that making her fight wouldn't be a good idea. Besides, he was nearly to the other side. All he needed was to get the door and get it open. "Run!"

They all ran across the rail, dodging the halos that came flying at them, slicing at whatever was in their path, like some sort of deadly frisbees. Sherlock, Molly, and Astrid reached the other side safely, but Slade went too fast and slipped, tumbling over the side. He was able to grab onto the edge, but was left hanging, unable to pull himself up.

The Doctor hurried to help, but Astrid got there first. She'd already been safe on the other side, but when she'd seen Slade fall, she'd started back across the rail, going down on her hands and knees to help Slade up. She pulled him back up onto the rail, but before she could stand, one of the hosts' halos slammed into her side. Already slightly off-balance, the force of it threw Astrid over the side. The Doctor screamed her name in protest, but it was too late. The waitress was sent screaming into the fiery abyss.

The Time Lord stared after her with horror, hearts pounding. He'd hardly wanted to admit it to himself, but he'd been considering offering Astrid a place on the TARDIS. She had been companion material – smart, brave, compassionate. She'd died saving Slade's life, the least thankful or deserving person in the party. And now she was gone. Too many people had been lost already.

Slade let out a slow breath. For a moment, the Doctor thought he was going to express some sense of grief at Astrid's death, but instead he stood shakily, looking down at himself in relief. "It's alright, I'm alright."

The Time Lord felt fury boiling in his blood. In the calmest tone he could manage, he asked, "What about Astrid? She's not 'alright.'"

The businessman shrugged unconcernedly. "So?" he asked coldly. "It's not my fault she was a klutz."

It took all of the Doctor's self-control to keep the Oncoming Storm under locks. He didn't want to do something he'd regret. Still, that didn't keep him from shouting, "She just died saving your life!" Then he forced himself to take a breath. They had to keep moving. "Come on," he growled, pulling Slade up and pushing him forward, forcing him to keep going across the rail.

It was only a few steps left to the door. The Doctor was quickly able to unlock it, letting them through into the next room. He locked it quickly behind them, even as halos banged against the door. The Time Lord frowned, looking back at his small group. "It's no good. They'll keep coming after us." He hesitated, the nodded once, his mind made up. "Right, you lot, stay here, find somewhere safe to hide out. Find a comm, try to contact Frame and get him to send out and SOS. Morvin, Foon, look after Molly. Molly, look after Sherlock. Rickston, er... look after yourself." He turned back towards the door, starting to open it again.

"What are you doing?" Molly asked with alarm.

"Getting a ride to deck thirty one," the Time Lord told her grimly.

"What, from the hosts?" she asked dubiously. "How? You'll get yourself killed!"

He gave her a little half-smirk, the best he could manage after all the death. "I'll think of something. I'm clever, remember?"

"Then I'm coming," Sherlock said, to the Doctor's surprise.

The Time Lord shook his head. "I need you here with the others, Sherlock."

"I have a plan," the detective explained. "And from what I've seen of your operations, I think that's something you're sorely in need of."

The Doctor hesitated, then sighed. "Yeah, alright, fine, but for now, just do what I say, yeah?" He and the detective got the door open, then passed through, hurrying to close it behind them.

As they stood facing the floating hosts again, Sherlock went to pick up a nearby pipe, but the Doctor held his hands up in a peace-keeping gesture. "No, no, no. Hold on. Override loophole. Security protocol ten." Nothing. They kept advancing. He tried again. "Six six six. Er, twenty one, four, five, six, seven, eight." Nothing. "I don't know, forty two? Er, one!"

The angels paused, halting their attack. One gave off a _ding_ and told him, "Information. State request."

The Doctor grinned triumphantly. "Right. Now, request, request, I've got a request, more of a question really. You've been given orders to kill the survivors but survivors must therefore be passengers or staff, but not us. We're not passengers. We're not staff." The angels continued to stare blankly at him, but they did not resume their attack. "Go on, scan us. You must have bio-records. No such people on board. We don't exist, therefore you can't kill us. Therefore, we're stowaways, and stowaways should be arrested and taken to the nearest figure of authority. And I reckon the nearest figure of authority is on deck thirty one. Am I right?"

There was a pause, long enough to make him rethink his plan. Then; "Information. Correct."

The Time Lord beamed. "Brilliant. Take me to your leader!" He turned to Sherlock with a idiotic grin. "I've always wanted to say that." The detective rolled his eyes, but allowed himself to be led along with the Doctor by the host.

SCENEBREAK

They were led down to deck thirty one by the hosts. The two geniuses had conversed in whispers during the trip, but now both had fallen silent, waiting for the hosts to take them to journey's end.

When they arrived, the Doctor looked around with interest. "Wow. Now that is what you call a fixer upper." He whirled around to face the hosts. "Come on then, Host with the most, this ultimate authority of yours. Let's see him, then."

Behind the hosts, two metal doors slid open, cold air and steam escaping as the air-tight atmosphere was broken. The Doctor raised his eyebrows at the sight. "Oh, that's clever. That's an omnistate impact chamber. Indestructible. You can survive anything in there. Sit through a supernova."

"Or a shipwreck," Sherlock quipped, stepping in lightly beside the Doctor. The two stood backs angled towards each other, keeping an eye on the hosts around them. "And there's only one man who could pull this off, only one with reason to."

Through the steam, a strange metal contraption wheeled out. It was large and boxy, with a glass dome on top. Inside the dome was the head of Max Capricorn. In a rough tone, he told them, "I am Max." He gave an oily smile, his gold tooth glinting just as it had in the video.

The Doctor blinked in surprise, staring at the tooth. "It really does that."

Capricorn glared at him, then turned to the hosts. "Who the hell is this?" he growled.

The Time Lord grinned pleasantly, bouncing forward lightly on the balls of his feet. The same old routine, the harmless facade. "I'm the Doctor, hello, and this is Sherlock Holmes, a friend of mine." The detective shot him a slight glare at that, but otherwise didn't comment.

One of the hosts informed Capricorn, "Information. Stowaways."

The Doctor shrugged. "Well."

Capricorn rolled his eyes. "Kill them!" he snapped irritably.

The hosts moved towards him, but before they could attack, the Doctor hurriedly held up his hands. "Oh, no, no, no. Wait, but you can't," he protested hastily. "Not now. Come on, Max. You've given me so much good material like, how to get ahead in business." He chuckled, even as Sherlock and Capricorn both gave him unamused glares. "See? Head?" he prompted. "Head in business?" They just glared. "No?"

Capricorn gave a sarcastic laugh. "Oh, ho, ho, the office joker. I like a funny man. No one's been funny with me for years."

"Can't imagine why," Sherlock said drily.

"A hundred and seventy six years of running the company have taken their toll," the businessman admitted.

"Still, you've got a good deal out of it, a nice little machine to cart you around," Sherlock remarked lightly.

Capricorn scoffed. "No, a life support system, in a society that despises cyborgs. I've had to hide away for years, running the company by hologram." He frowned, suddenly looking concerned. "Host, situation report."

"Information. _Titanic_ is still in orbit."

The cyborg's eyes narrowed. He started to wheel towards the railing overlooking the engine, snapping, "Let me see," to the hosts in his way. "We should have crashed by now. What's gone wrong?" They moved, as did Sherlock, to let him wheel right up to the railing. He let out a frustrated snarl. "The engines are still running! They should have stopped!"

"Yeah, sorry about that," the detective snarked, "I'm afraid that's our fault. See, we've got a man up on the bridge keeping this ship alive. But while we're on the subject, let's talk about your plan, because I am very interested. Why Earth? What made you choose them?"

Capricorn rolled his eyes. "This interview is terminated," he growled.

He started to roll away, but Sherlock stepped in front of him. "Oh, come on now, the game's just starting. Stay a bit. A plan like this deserves to be explained, and you know it, don't you? Oh, you've been wanting to tell someone about this for ages, haven't you? Your masterpiece, your brilliance, the plan you put together piece by piece. Why not tell me? I'm the only one clever enough to keep up."

Capricorn hesitated, then shrugged. "I read the story of the _Titanic_ once when I was a child, and Earth is only a Level Five planet, hardly capable of meeting an attack like this. I thought it appropriate the _Titanic_ to sink where it always has."

"Appropriate," Sherlock agreed drily. "So you wrapped it all up in some dramatic irony with a nice bow, the gift of revenge for the board that kicked you out." At Capricorn's surprise, he smirked. "Oh, don't look so shocked. It's there to hear if people listen. So your business is down the drain, your board has kicked you out, you haven't got a penny left. You've got nothing left to lose, have you?"

The cyborg nodded angrily. "They stabbed me in the back," he growled. "Years I put into that company, nearly two centuries, and then I became _this_, and they thought they could just toss me out!"

Sherlock nodded. "Oh, but you weren't done, were you? They thought you were just a helpless cripple they could rid themselves of. They didn't figure for you being clever enough to get your own back."

"I'm not as worthless as they all thought," he practically snarled. "They ruined me, now I can ruin them."

"By crashing their newest ship, the crown jewel of their collection, into a helpless planet. Blow it up, kill everyone on the planet, and the board gets the blame. Their whole world comes tumbling down, just like they brought yours down, and you get to stay in your little box and ride the whole thing out."

Capricorn grinned. "I have men waiting to retrieve me from the ruins and enough off-world accounts to retire me to the beaches of Penhaxico Two, where the ladies, so I'm told, are very fond of... _metal_."

"The perfect crime," Sherlock conceded. Capricorn was preening under the praise, though he tried to hide it. "You've manipulated every step, and now that the Host are ridding the ship of survivors, there won't be anyone who can ever figure out what you did."

The cyborg gave a smug grin. "The perfect crime indeed. No one will ever know."

"_Aaaaand_, that's where you're wrong."

Capricorn looked up at the Doctor in surprise. Evidently, in his conversation with Sherlock, he'd gotten so caught up in the praise and revealing his plan that he'd forgotten all about the Doctor, which had been the plan.

While they had been talking, the Doctor had been working on the controls to the doors with his sonic screwdriver. He flipped it in his hand, smirking smugly at the cyborg. "Oh, hello, don't mind me, I've just been admiring the work you've done on this impact chamber. Brilliant stuff, your suit there's connected directly to the doors. Not anymore, of course, I've changed the controls." He held up his sonic screwdriver for Capricorn to see. "This nifty little tool of mine's let me write a new opening sequence for the door. Overrode the connection to your suit, and ooo, just for fun, added in a deadlock seal. Now even a sonic screwdriver won't get you in." He gave the man a cocky grin. "Let's see what happens when we shut it now, eh?" His hand went for the controls.

The cyborg cried out in protest, but it was too late. The doors slid shut, sealing with a hiss. Capricorn nearly snarled with anger, then he calmed, sneering at the Doctor. "Nice trick, but you haven't disconnected me from the engines. I can shut them off from here."

"Oh, we know," Sherlock assured him. "How do you think we figured out to seal off the impact chamber and cut off your connection to it?"

"Yeah, great thinking on Sherlock's part there," the Doctor admitted, "though really, I did all the work."

Sherlock gave him a withering glare. "Work? Try praising this idiot long enough to distract him. You took your time with that, by the way."

Capricorn's nostrils flared, eyes wide with anger. "Idiot?! My plan was perfect!"

The detective smirked. "I've seen better. Really, you left your motive wide open. An idiot could figure out you did this. I mean, the ship's shields were down and magnetized to draw the meteors in. It clearly wasn't an accident."

The cyborg let out a low growl. "You forget, I have access to the engines. I can deactivate them and get you all killed."

"Do that, and you die too," the Doctor pointed out shrewdly. "You're stuck out here with the rest of us now, on the wrong side of those doors. You crash this ship, you kill yourself too, and you can't do that, can you? If you were ready to die, you would've made this a suicide mission, but instead you sunk every last penny you had into building that impact chamber. That must've cost you every cent you had left. Only a man desperate to live would go to that trouble, and a man that desperate to live isn't going to blow himself up even for revenge." His tone grew firmer as he told Capricorn, "The engines are failing. They'll be gone in a few minutes, but you can stop that. You can luxury in a nice jail cell for the rest of your life, which is better than being dead, and you've still gotten your blow in against the board. Wrecked their best ship, haven't you? Just let it end here."

Capricorn glared between Sherlock and the Doctor, hatred blazing in his eyes, before finally dipping his head. The nearby monitor beeped. "_Engines back online. Engines back on line._" They could feel the ship move as the course was changed, heading right away from Earth.

The Doctor let out a slight breath, sharing a slight grin with Sherlock. They'd done it.

SCENEBREAK

After disconnecting Capricorn from the Host, they were able to rejoin the other survivors. Slade was rude and obnoxious as ever, but Morvin, Foon, and Bannakaffalatta were thrilled when they returned. Molly grinned as they finally made their way over to her. "Frame called," she told them. "Looks like you two saved the day."

"I guess we did, yeah," the Doctor said, giving Sherlock a grin.

Molly's expression softened into one of sympathy. "You alright?" she asked gently.

He knew she was asking about Astrid. "Yeah, I'm fine," he lied. It was always hard to see someone under his care die, but someone with that much courage and compassion made it harder. Still, he still had two brilliant companions, both alive and well. He was a little surprised to find himself thinking of Sherlock Holmes as a companion. After all, he was only on board because he needed somewhere to hide, and Molly had asked. But really, the detective had earned the title. He'd done enough world-saving to warrant it, and after this, the Doctor knew he could trust and rely on Sherlock as well as any companion.

He turned to Morvin and Foon. "So, what'll you two do now that this is all over?"

Morvin's smile faltered somewhat. "Well, we're so far in debt now we'll be working the rest of our lives, but at least we're still alive, and we've still got each other." The couple embraced, relaxing into each other, clearly relieved to be alive.

Bannakaffalatta cleared his throat. "Bannakaffalatta grateful to Doctor for saving him," he told the Time Lord. "Bannakaffalatta want to help the Doctor's friends. Bannakaffalatta rich, will pay off Morvin's debts."

The Doctor looked at the red midget with surprise. "Really?"

The Van Hoffs stared at him, dumbfounded. "You'd really do that for us?" Foon breathed.

The red alien nodded with a grin. "You are friends. Survived together."

The Doctor grinned, suddenly filled with warmth. Slade might have been an annoying prat who let a woman die saving him without grief, but here, right here, was proof of the goodness of the universe. This is why he did what he did.

He turned back to his companions with a bright grin. "Come on, you two. There's some teleportation bracelets left, and I think down on Earth we'll find a certain blue box waiting for us."

At long last, it was time to go home.

* * *

Hoo boy, that turned out way longer than expected. It's a hundred words short of being 5000 words long. I nearly had to chop this chapter in half. Why does this episode seem so much longer than all the others?

Anyway, sorry about the wait, I needed to take some time to think about where I wanted to go next with this episode. A few people were complaining that I wasn't including Sherlock enough, and they were right. I hope this made up for it, and that there were enough changes from canon to satisfy everyone. For Partners in Crime, don't expect too many changes, the meeting with Donna should remain relatively the same I think. But after that episode, canon will be followed loosely. Hopefully very loosely, depending on how creative I can be.

**BloodLily16:** Oh, you have _no_ idea how much fun I'm going to have writing scenes with those two. XD


	6. Partners in Crime: Part One

It had been two weeks since the _Titanic_. They'd spent the entire time in the Time Vortex. The Doctor had said that the TARDIS needed repairs after the Paradox Machine, and the collision with the past TARDIS, and the _Titanic_ crashing through the walls. Molly could understand that, but she knew that the Doctor was only drawing it out to give her time to rest after her concussion.

She'd thought being on a Doctor adventure was weird, but just sitting around on the TARDIS was even weirder. For a year, she'd been sleeping out in the open, with barely a blanket and nothing but dirt and rocks, maybe sheltering overnight in a slave headquarters if she was lucky. Now she had the comfort of the TARDIS back, and while she appreciated it, it was still weird.

Spending time in the library made it easier. It had been one of her favorite TARDIS rooms before the Year, and when she curled up on the couch, in front of a crackling fire under the familiar night sky ceiling, she could sometimes lose herself in a book and forget she'd ever left. For a bit, she could escape the memories and just feel comfortable and safe.

Sherlock had been remarkably un-destructive in the two weeks spent sitting around doing nothing. For a while, Molly had worried he'd found something dangerous and mechanical on the ship to examine and possibly break, but after a bit she figured the Doctor was keeping him entertained and away from bugging her while she rested. The way he was tiptoeing around her irked her a bit, but she was grateful she didn't have to deal with a bored Sherlock.

After two weeks, however, even she grew restless. She'd been constantly on the move all last year, and even before that, she'd never had more than a week between adventures on the TARDIS. Two weeks worth of sitting around was starting to get to her head.

She confronted the Doctor, who was in the console room, tinkering with something on the console. "Doctor, when are we landing?" she asked bluntly.

The Time Lord looked up from his work, looking slightly sheepish. "Oh, you know, I just need to get a few more things calibrated -"

"It's been two weeks," she interrupted, giving him a knowing look. "I know you, Doctor. I know you hate staying anywhere that long, even the TARDIS, and you've got to be going stir crazy after being kept on Earth for a year. My head feels fine, honestly. Lets land already." When he looked at her skeptically, she narrowed her eyes. "I'm fine," she insisted.

The Doctor hesitated, then grinned, dashing around the TARDIS and starting up the flight sequence. "Brilliant! Right, just go find Sherlock and let him know we're landing. I think he's off exploring somewhere. The TARDIS has been keeping from getting into too much trouble."

Molly nodded, then turned and headed off down the hall, letting the TARDIS lead her. She had missed the sentient ship, with her ever- changing architecture and her sense of humor. Today, she was evidently feeling helpful, as she led Molly straight to Sherlock.

The detective was in some sort of garden room, staring around with frustration. Molly chuckled at the sight, understanding immediately. "So the TARDIS is keeping you away from anything technical, is she?" she asked with amusement.

Sherlock looked back at her with a raised eyebrow. "'Her?'" he repeated dubiously.

"Oh right, forgot to mention, the TARDIS is alive," Molly told him cheerfully. The idea of finally landing had brought her spirits up higher than they'd been in ages. "A sentient being who doesn't like nosy companions trying to take her apart to figure out how she works."

The detective narrowed his eyes, gaze flicking around the hall with interest. "That would explain the pattern in the changing hallways," he remarked lightly. "A sentient, intelligent being controlling the architecture, changing it at will. I assumed it was the Doctor's work."

Molly chuckled. "Yeah, she'll change the halls around on you. She's friendly though, as long as you don't try to pull anything apart to study it." She patted the door frame fondly, smiling as a friendly _hum_ echoed through the halls. "By the way, the Doctor says we're landing soon. You ready for a trip?"

Sherlock's expression grew somber, dark grief flashing in his eyes for a moment. "Actually, I've been meaning to ask about that. I've been working online for the last two weeks, and during the Year That Never War, I was able to discover some of Moriarty's contacts. I've tracked a group of them down and I've arranged things so that they'll be arrested. But I need to be there for the last few pieces to be put into place."

Molly sobered as she remembered why Sherlock had been brought on board in the first place. There hadn't been any sign of Moriarty during the Year, which matched Sherlock's story that he'd shot himself, but some of his men had survived the first wave of Toclafane attacks. Some had gone into hiding like Mycroft, but others had become part of a black market among the slaves. Trading what drugs were left, alcohol, women, favors. Murder and other crimes were still a part of life during the Year That Never Was, and Molly had seen plenty of it. Even during the worst of times, not all humans had it in them to band together rather than turning on each other.

"Of course," Molly assured him. "Where do you need us to drop you?"

"London." He gave her the coordinates, then told her exactly when he needed to be picked up and where. "Everything should be sorted out by then."

She nodded. "Right, I'll let the Doctor know." As she led him through the halls to the console room, she wondered silently how long it would take to hunt down all of Moriarty's men.

And what it would mean when it was over.

SCENEBREAK

The Doctor agreed to drop Sherlock off where directed, plugging in the coordinates and landing the TARDIS with his usual grace and balance. The detective wore a different coat, brown and equally long, probably pulled from the TARDIS wardrobe. He also wore a hat, and had his coat collar up to hide his face. Molly still didn't think it was a good idea to let the man who was supposed to be dead walk around London, but it was only for a few hours, and he'd be back on the TARDIS when it was done.

As Sherlock walked away and disappeared into the crowd, the Doctor turned back towards the TARDIS. "Right then. Off to the Crystal Snows of Paldoon?"

Molly didn't answer. Her attention had been caught by a nearby billboard. She headed over, eyes narrowed as she studied it. It displayed a before and after picture of a woman, featuring significant weight loss in the second picture. The thing that had caught Molly's attention were the dates; the after picture had only been taken two weeks after the before picture.

"Doctor, come look at this." She waved the Time Lord over, pointing to the dates. "There's no way any diet pill can make you lose that much weight in that short amount of time. And look." She gestured to another part of the ad. "Look at those sponsors. You wouldn't get people like that sinking money into a weight-loss program unless there were some serious results."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "You're right." He pulled out his sonic screwdriver, then turned to her. "Can I see your phone?" She handed it to him, and he used the screwdriver to scroll quickly through internet searches on the ad. "Hmm, seems to be all over the place. Popped out of nowhere over the last few months, now it's booming." He gave her a conspiratorial grin. "Seems suspicious."

She grinned back. "Definitely worth looking into," she agreed.

The Time Lord turned and locked the TARDIS, then whirled back around to face Molly, offering her an arm with a knowing grin. "So, miss Hooper, off to investigate Adipose Industries?" Grinning, she took the offered arm, and together they started off down the street.

SCENEBREAK

With some help from the internet, they eventually found the building housing Adipose Industries. The building was tall with glass windows, stretching high above their heads. They snuck around back, sonicing open a fire exit door to get in. For a minute, Molly was worried the flash and noise of unlocking it would attract attention, but no one came running to see what had happened. The only person they passed as they headed into the building barely glanced at them as the Doctor pulled out the psychic paper and explained, "Health and Safety."

When the man walked out of earshot, Molly asked the Doctor, "So, it said online that there's some kind of presentation today. We sneaking in as reporters?"

"Nah, too obvious, and too many questions," the Doctor replied. "we'll get a different view." Without further explaining, he hurried along, forcing her to work to keep up.

They made their way through the building with the psychic paper, then eventually reached the Doctor's destination – the projection booth overlooking the auditorium. There was a sharp-looking blond woman in a bun standing in front of a move theater screen displaying the Adipose logo, addressing attentive reporters sitting in the audience seats. "Adipose Industries," she announced in a clipped tone, her smile tight and without warmth. "The 21st century way to lose weight. No exercise, no diet, no pain. Just lifelong freedom from fat. The Holy Grail of the modern age." With a flourish, she held up a little pill for the reporters to see. Molly couldn't see it very well from the booth. 'And here it is. You just take one capsule, one capsule, once a day, for three weeks. And the fat, as they say.."

She turned to look at the screen. The logo pulled further up on the screen as text appeared below it. A male voice read out the text: "The fat just walks away!"

As the lights in the auditorium went up as the presentation ended, one reporter spoke up. "Excuse me, Miss Foster, if I could?" The blond woman, Ms. Foster, looked at the reporter with the same tight smile. "I'm Penny Carter, science correspondent for The Observer. There are a thousand diet pills on the market, a thousand con men stealing people's money. How do we know the fat isn't going straight into your bank account?"

Ms. Foster gave a forced little chuckle. "Oh Penny, if cynicism burnt up calories, we'd all be as thin as rakes." Molly blanched at how fake her cheerful tone sounded. "But if you want the science, I oblige."

The logo on the screen pulled out, to be replaced with a diagram of a human body. The earlier voice began to narrate. "Adipose Industries. The Adipose capsule is composed of a synthesised mobilising lipase, bound to a large protein molecule. The mobilising lipase breaks up the trigycerides stored in the adipose cells, which then enter..."

The man working the projector had noticed the Doctor and Molly's arrival, and though he hadn't said anything, he was now openly staring at the Doctor. The Time Lord finally noticed, holding up his psychic paper for the man to see. "Health and Safety." He seemed to realize how ridiculous that sounded for someone sneaking into a projector booth, as he added somewhat lamely, "Film department."

The explanation had ended, and Ms. Foster was looking at the reporter with a smug smirk. "100 percent legal, 100 percent effective," she summed up.

The reporter, Penny, asked, "But, can I just ask, how many people have taken the pills to date?"

"We've already got one million customers within the Greater London area alone," Ms. Foster answered promptly. "But from next week, we start rolling out nationwide." She gave that queer smile of hers again. "The future starts here. And Britain will be thin."

Molly couldn't suppress a shudder. It had only been a hunch before with the ad, but now she was sure, something was definitely wrong here. The Doctor seemed to agree. His brow was crinkled as he said, "That was a load of rubbish. All that about synthesized liapses and trigycerides, there was nothing real to that, it was nonsense."

"She's lying," Molly concluded grimly, ignoring the weirded-out stare of the projector man. "And we've got to stop her.

SCENEBREAK

As they exited the building, Molly and the Doctor linked arms again, walking together down the street. "So, what's our next move?" Molly asked.

"Well, we need to find out more about how this Adipose stuff works," the Doctor replied, looking thoughtful. "And what's the best way to find out how a product works?"

"Go to the customers," Molly realized.

The Time Lord grinned. "Precisely. So all we need's a list of customers, then go interview them ourselves, hear it straight from the source."

"What about Sherlock?" Molly asked. "He'll need us to pick him up in a few hours, and we can't leave him wandering around London, it's too dangerous."

"Time machine, remember?" the Doctor reminded her. "We'll just have to hop into the past and pick him up then."

Molly let out a light sigh, staring somberly at the throng of people passing them on the street. The Doctor looked at her with concern. "You alright?"

She nodded. "Yeah. It's just... weird. You know, time travel, being able to go anywhere again. Jumping in and out of time however we want. I haven't had that in a long time." She gave him a sad smile. "I had to walk the slow path, Doctor. A slow path on a dying Earth." The companion turned to look back at the crowd. "Even this. Just watching people, normal, ordinary people, walking there, living their lives without any clue of how close they came to losing everything. Naive, and innocent. There wasn't any innocence on the Master's Earth."

The Doctor was staring at her with a sad expression, all of his years heavy in his eyes. The unspoken concern made Molly feel a little guilty about bringing it up at all, and either way, she wasn't sure she was ready to really talk about it. She pulled her arm away, pulling her coat in closer against the chilly air, and sped up her pace. "Come on, let's keep going." Without a word, the Time Lord followed her.

SCENEBREAK

They reached the call center for Adipose Industries, a series of cubicles with what seemed like every phone in the room ringing at once. They went toward one of the cubicles, where a woman was on the phone.

The Doctor showed her the psychic paper, whispering, "John Smith and Molly Hooper, Health and Safety, don't mind us." The woman, who's desk nameplate declared her to be "Clare," had seemed annoyed when her call had been interrupted, but when she got a proper look at the Doctor, she grinned, gaze sizing him up appreciatively. Molly couldn't help but feel uncomfortable. Sure, the Doctor was attractive, but she hadn't thought of the Time Lord like that even from the start. After two years thinking of him as almost a brother, the woman's obvious admiration was a little odd.

The Time Lord told Clare, "We're gonna need one of those pills for testing, make sure they're safe and all that."

Clare rummaged in her desk for a moment before pulling out a gold necklace chain, with a golden capsule for the pill connected to the chain. "It is made of 18 carat gold, and it's yours for free," she said with a grin. Her smile faded as the person on the other end of the phone spoke. Irritated, she informed them, "No, we don't give away pens, sorry. No, I can't make an exception, no."

The Doctor took it with a grin. Molly spoke up for the first time, informing the woman, "Also, we'll need a list of anyone who's bought any of these."

Looking a little less eager to please her, Clare typed something into her computer, then nodded. "Just give me a sec, it'll be by the printer then."

The Doctor stood, looking over the walls of the cubicle. "That's the printer there?" he asked.

"By the plant, yeah," Clare confirmed.

"Brilliant." He sat again, leaning over to look at her computer as he asked, "Has it got paper?"

Clare nodded. "Yeah, Jimbo keeps it stocked.

Just as the Doctor and Molly were about to head over to the printer, Ms. Foster walked into the office, flanked by two goods. In her stiff, prim tone, she announced, "Excuse me, everyone, if I could have your attention."

The Doctor and his companion ducked quickly behind the walls of the cubicle. They peeked up to watch Ms. Foster glaring around at her employees, ducking whenever she looked back towards them. Her voice was cool and curt as she informed her employees, "On average, you're each selling forty Adipose packs per day. It's not enough. I want one hundred sales per person per day. And if not, you'll be replaced. Cos if anyone is good in trimming the fat, it's me." Molly blinked at her harsh tone, so different from her tight politeness from before. "Now. Back to it." With that, she turned and walked away.

Molly let out a low whistle. Ms. Foster didn't mince words with people under her payroll. The Doctor stared after her for a moment, then turned back to Clare. "Anyway, if you could print that off. Thanks."

She nodded, turning to her computer and pulling up the list, then hitting the print button. "There you go, done."

"Thanks, then," the Doctor said cheerfully. He started to stand, only for Clare to stop him by handing him a slip of paper. "Oh, what's that?"

"My telephone number," Clare told him with a flirtatious smile.

His brow crinkled in confusion. "What for?"

Clare raised an eyebrow suggestively. "Health and Safety. You be health, I be safety," she purred. Molly let out a choked cough, thrown off by the blatant attempt to flirt with the Time Lord. The Doctor's eyes widened and he started to back away, rambling rapidly, "Aah. Aah. But. That contravenes ah, paragraph five, subsection C. Sorry." He scurried away as fast as he could, Molly following, not sure whether to be uncomfortable or laugh at the Doctor's discomfort.

When they reached the printer, however, there was nothing printed there. A little sheepish, the Doctor returned to Clare's cubicle, grinning awkwardly at her. "Me again."

Molly thought she saw a ginger woman glance furtively back at the printer before hurrying out the door, but she was gone before she could get a good look at her. _Ah well,_ she thought to herself, _it's probably nothing._

* * *

EDIT: Edited, I originally mixed up when the TARDIS is parked next to Donna's car.

So, another chapter, and the first part in Partners in Crime! No Donna yet, except for that little tease at the end there, but hopefully by next chapter I'll be able to write the brilliant Donna Noble.

And yes, I've kicked Sherlock off-board for the episode, but this time I'm not being lazy! I am making sure Sherlock and Donna meet in a situation that isn't dangerous and rushed and everything hurrying along. No, they're going to meet and have a proper, drawn-out snark battle. Probably in an interlude after this episode.

Like I said, this episode will mostly stick to canon, though as you can see I threw in some conversations with Molly that didn't happen in the episode since the Doctor had no one to talk to.


	7. Partners in Crime: Part Two

By the time they got the list and got out, it was dark, nearly nightfall. It had gotten even colder outside; Molly was in dark pants and the same black leather jacket she'd worn during the Year, and though it was good for cold nights, it wasn't thick enough to block out the wind. She shivered, hugging her arms in close to keep herself warm as she asked, "So, who're we visiting first?"

The Doctor looked at the list for a moment before deciding, "A Mr. Roger Davey, he's been taking the Adipose pills a good two weeks now, should be able to tell us how quickly this stuff works." He shoved his hands in his pockets, not seeming at all bothered by the cold. Molly had noticed this quirk of his before – she assumed it was a Time Lord thing. "Doesn't live too far from here, we should be fine to walk."

Molly nodded, though she wasn't looking forward to a walk in the cold. "Right, let's get started then." She and the Time Lord linked arms and started down the street.

As they walked, the Doctor asked, "So, how do you think Sherlock's doing?"

Molly chuckled. "Either fine or in trouble, knowing him. He's a bit like you in that. But he's too focused to get distracted by alien shenanigans like us."

The Doctor chuckled. "Oi, don't knock the alien shenanigans!" Molly laughed, feeling herself properly relax and enjoy herself for the first time in a long time. She grinned at the Time Lord, leaning against his shoulder for a moment as she laughed. She'd forgotten how comfortable she'd been with the Time Lord.

After a few moments, a new thought occurred to her. She wasn't even really sure where it came from, but something had reminded her of it, something of the ease of laughing with the Doctor. "I met Sarah Jane Smith during the Year," she told him quietly.

The Time Lord's expression sobered, something like fear or sadness, and a hint of nostalgia, glinting in his eyes. "Really? How'd that go?"

"She survived the first wave of Toclafane, and she was heading one of the slave headquarters, keeping everyone together and safe, and keeping people in line," she told him. "She helped us sneak in and spread the news about you, and she gave us a ton of supplies. She was very brave – is, I mean. I'm not sure what happened to her after that, but I guess since the Year never really happened it doesn't matter anyway." Molly looked curiously at her friend. "After meeting her, I've just been wondering, about who else you've traveled with."

The Doctor shrugged. "There's been a lot of them," was all he said.

Molly rolled her eyes at the dodge – so typical of any conversation even slightly personal. "That's helpful," she said sarcastically. She grew quiet, tone softer as she asked, "Do you ever go back?" The Doctor looked at her curiously. "After they've, I dunno, left, or moved on, or get left behind. Do you ever visit, or just try to find out where they went in life?"

Now there was definitely sadness in the Doctor's eyes, and a small amount of fear. He was quiet for a few moments, saying in a low tone. "No." Then he shook his head, grinning again, the expression seeming fake and empty. "Nah, where's the fun in going back? You gotta keep moving forward."

Molly looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. She remembered what he'd said about looking into the Time Vortex as a kid. "_Oh, the ones that ran away! I never stopped._" He was still running now, moving on because looking back was too painful. That had been something she'd been sympathetic of before, but now it was something she could understand. She had her own demons now, her own painful memories. She hadn't realized it before, but she was running too.

But she had someone to run with.

She grinned at the Time Lord, suddenly very glad to have him at her side. "Come on then. Roger Davey awaits!"

"Hold on," the Doctor told her. "There's something I need to grab from the TARDIS first. Something to track any signals the pills might be giving off."

SCENEBREAK

Roger Davies was a stocky man, but by no means overweight. Molly wondered warily whether that was a testament to the power of Adipose or just how he'd started.

When the Doctor and Molly reached the house and knocked on the door, he opened it warily, staring at them with confusion. The Doctor grinned easily at him, Molly following suit. "Mister Roger Davey?" he questioned. Roger nodded cautiously, and the Doctor flashed the psychic paper. "I'm calling on behalf of Adipose Industries. Just need to ask you a few questions."

Still seeming a bit confused, Roger let them into the house. He led them into the living room, where he sat on one of the chairs. Molly sat on the couch, but the Doctor stayed standing, pacing thoughtfully. "I've been on the pills for two weeks now," he told them with a satisfied smile. "I've lost fourteen kilos."

"That's the same amount every day?" the Doctor asked.

Roger nodded. "One kilo exactly. You wake up, and it's disappeared overnight." He hesitated, brow furrowing. "Well, technically speaking, it's gone by ten past one in the morning."

Molly frowned. "That's pretty specific, Mr. Davey," she pointed out. "Where'd you get that time from?"

"That's when I get woken up." he answered, looking slightly irritated. "Might as well weigh myself at the same time. It is driving me mad. Ten minutes past one, every night, bang on the dot without fail, the burglar alarm goes off."

Molly and the Doctor shared a confused glance. That wasn't what they'd expected. "You're saying someone's breaking in every night?" the companion asked with concern.

Roger shook his head. "No, nothing's ever taken."

"Mr. Davey," the Doctor cut in, "can we see this alarm then?" His brow was furrowed thoughtfully, his pacing paused as he waited for an answer.

The man hesitated, then shrugged. "Sure, why not?" He stood, starting towards the door. "Come on, I'll show you."

Roger led them out the front door, pointing up to the red alarm control panel above the door. "I've had experts in, I've had it replaced, I've even phoned Watchdog. But no, ten past one in the morning, off it goes."

"But with no burglars?" the Doctor repeated.

He shook his head. "Nothing," he repeated irritably. "I've given up looking."

Molly stared at the alarm, dumbfounded. "Has it been tampered with or something?" she wondered aloud.

Roger shrugged. Looking thoughtful, the Doctor turned to him and asked, "Tell me, Roger. Have you got a cat flap?"

The man nodded, looking confused. "Yeah, er, around this way."

He went through the front door again, leaving the Doctor and Molly to follow him. As they did, Molly asked in a low voice, "Got any ideas?"

"Maybe," was all he'd say.

Roger showed them the back door, which had a cat flap. They all leaned down to get a look at it, the Doctor poking it open with his sonic screwdriver and peering curiously out. "It was here when I bought the house," Roger explained. "I've never bothered with it, really. I'm not a cat person."

"No, I've met cat people," the Doctor remarked distractedly. "You're nothing like them." Molly snorted at the reference to Nurse Hame on New Earth, but Roger looked at her oddly, so she held back further laughter, trying to keep a straight face.

"It's that what it is, though?" Roger asked. "Cats getting inside the house?"

The Doctor peered out the cat flap, eyes narrowed. "Well, thing about cat flaps is, they don't just let things in, they let things out as well."

Molly finally realized what the Doctor was getting at. "Wait, you don't mean...?"

The Time Lord looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "'The fat just walks away,'" he quoted.

SCENEBREAK

As they said their goodbyes, the Doctor shook Roger's hand, saying with a grin, "Well, thanks for your help. Tell you what, maybe you could lay off the pills for a week or so."

"Yeah, it'll help with testing reactions and such," Molly added. "You've been very helpful, Mr. Davey."

"Thanks, I'm just glad I could help," Roger assured them.

Suddenly, the Doctor's device he'd picked up from the TARDIS began beeping rapidly. Molly still wasn't sure what it was, the Doctor's rambling explanation had kind of flown over her head, but she got that it meant something was happening with Adipose.

The Doctor looked at it for a moment, then started for the door. "Oh, got to go, sorry. Come on, Molly." She followed him as he pushed past the door, breaking into a run as he followed the signal on the beeping device.

They ran through the streets of London in the dark, occasionally having to halt and figure out which alley to take, or to smack the device to get it working. As they turned down one street, they nearly got run over by a black van with tinted windows and flashing lights. As it passed, the beeping on the device grew more rapid. The Doctor's eyes widened. "Come on, we've got to catch that van!"

They bolted after it, but it turned a corner down an alley. As they followed it, the beeping slowed, and the van was nowhere in sight. The Doctor halted, glaring at the device with a frustrated growl. "It's gone."

Molly wasn't out of breath or too tired from the run, which didn't really surprise her at this point. She'd learned to keep up with the Doctor not long after being brought on board. She looked at the device he was holding curiously. "What is that? What exactly were we chasing?"

"Biochemical signal," the Doctor answered. "One of those pills must've sent it out. That van must've been there for a pick-up job."

"A pick-up job... of fat?" Molly asked dubiously. "The fat literally walked away, and they've got secret teams going 'round and picking them up off the streets? Why? What's the point?"

"Dunno," the Doctor answered, "but it's definitely alien. There's no way human technology's at this stage yet. Nice call, Molly."

The companion frowned. "It seems to work as a diet plan, though. Do you think it's malevolent?"

The Time Lord shrugged. "Only one way to find out," he answered. "We gotta get back into Adipose Industries."

SCENEBREAK

That, however, was a quest for another day. The Doctor insisted on them getting back to the TARDIS and getting some sleep, clearly for Molly's benefit. She wondered a little irritably when he was going to stop coddling her because of her concussion,but she had to admit it'd been a long day, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to rest up before sneaking into Adipose again.

She woke up several hours later, room still blissfully dark. Molly was one of those people who woke easily when it got light in a room, so the lack of windows or outer light slipping into her room in her TARDIS room was a serious bonus. She got changed, the same black leather jacket from before and a lighter green shirt under it, then headed out into the hall.

When she reached the console room, the Doctor was already up, as always. He was leaning over the console, looking at the pill capsule with a magnifying glass. His eyes widened at what he saw, and he grinned widely. "Oh, fascinating. Seems to be a bio-flip digital stitch, specifically for converting human tissue, well fat, into different organic material." He looked up at Molly with an eager grin. "It sends out a signal whenever the conversion is made."

Molly chuckled at his childish excitement. "So that's what we were chasing. But what's the fat being converted into?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Dunno. Bet that Foster woman could tell us though."

"Probably. So, back to Adipose Industries then?" the companion questioned.

"Right!" The Doctor put the capsule back in his pocket, then started up the flight sequence, darting around the console. Molly helped, flipping up the few switches and levers she knew, and sending the TARDIS into the usual shudders. They'd been in the Time Vortex all night, but now the Doctor was sending them back to London modern day, the day after their chase after the truck. As the TARDIS stilled, Molly saw on the monitor that they had landed just outside Adipose Industries, around the back door they'd snuck in before.

They got in the same way again, the Doctor sonicing the door open in a flash of sparks and a bang. The travelers slipped quickly into the building, thankfully managing to avoid any employees walking down the halls. As they made their way down the hall, the Doctor slipped to the side, beckoning for Molly to follow him. After glancing furtively around the hall, he soniced open the door to a storage closet, slipping quickly inside. Once both he and Molly were inside, he re-locked the door.

Molly looked around at the closet with a wrinkled nose. "Bit cramped in here." There was barely enough room for the two of them to move around. Molly compromised by sitting on a bucket in the corner. "What're we in here for?"

The Doctor headed to the wall, pulling aside a panel to reveal a large, green machine, almost looking like the back of an old-fashioned computer. The Time Lord grinned appreciatively, pulling out his sonic screwdriver. "Back-up system. I should be able to hack into the main computers from here, see what our friend Ms. Foster's been up to." He scanned the machine quickly, frowning at what he found. "Hmm. Deadlocked." He tried again, brow furrowing further. "Er, make that double, no, triple deadlocked. Well." He leaned back, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "That's, er... that's gonna take a while."

"But you can break in, right?" Molly asked.

He gave a little shrug. "Yes? Maybe? No? Well, I can try anyway. At least 'til the place closes and we can try to access the actual computers. Maybe check out her office, see if there's anything we can use to get into her files."

Molly's eyebrows flew up. "So, we're stuck here 'til the place closes? That's not for another nine hours."

"Yep," was all the Doctor said.

Molly leaned back against the wall, letting out a low whistle. Nine hours, a task she couldn't help with, and only a phone on hand, though luckily it had internet. Oh yeah. This was going to go great.

SCENEBREAK

Luckily, the Doctor liked to talk as he worked, and any silences were filled by flipping through her phone. The two joked and talked, and the nine hours passed fairly quickly. Still, Molly was sitting the entire time, and was very grateful when 6:15 rolled around any they were able to get out of the closet. As the Doctor looked around furtively for anyone walking nearby, she stretched out her exceedingly stiff limbs. "Urgh, remind me to never sit in a closet for nine hours ever again," she grumbled.

The Time Lord looked around one last time, then started off down a hallway. "Come on, let's get moving." Molly finished stretching out her leg and followed him, wondering where he was leading her.

The answer turned out to be, onto the roof. As he pushed past the final door, she felt a burst of cool air, and she saw the gravel of the roof and the starry sky. "What're we doing out here?" she asked. "I thought we were going to Foster's office."

"We are," the Doctor confirmed. "There's a mechanic lift out here that can drop us down to the window leading into her office, I saw it on our way in."

Molly wasn't surprised he'd managed to figure out which of the hundreds of windows was Foster's office, what with his Time Lord brain and all. "We couldn't have just reached her office from inside?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Nah, could've been spotted by someone still inside," the Doctor reasoned. "Besides," he asked with a grin, "where's the fun in that?"

The companion chuckled. "You're right," she admitted. Grinning, he offered his hand, which she took, and led her to the ladder leading to the lift.

The Time Lord used the sonic screwdriver to move the lift down, until it was level with Foster's window. They peered in eagerly, the Doctor ready to try to sonic it open, but both travelers ducked down out of view as Foster, the reporter Penny, and two other men walked into the office. They waited, ducked down, uncertain of whether they'd be seen or not if they popped up. The Doctor pulled a stethoscope and put it against the wall, listening for voices inside. He offered one earbud to Molly, which she took, forcing them to keep their heads together with the earbuds stretched around both their heads.

Molly was able to make out Penny's outraged voice. "What sort of a country do you think this is?" she demanded. From the way the two men had dragged her inside and her status as a reporter, Molly guessed she'd been investigating Adipose and Foster had caught her and dragged her in here to confront her about it.

"Oh, it's a beautifully fat country," Foster replied in a remarkably calm, collected tone. "And believe me, I've traveled a long way to find obesity on this scale."

"So, come on then, Miss Foster," Penny pressed, "those pills. What are they?"

"Well, you might just as well have a scoop, since you'll never see it printed." Molly shuddered at the implications of that. "This is the spark of life." Molly assumed she was referring to one of the pills.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Penny asked, unimpressed.

In a clipped, formal tone, Foster explained, "Officially, the capsule attracts all the fat cells and flushes them away. Well, it certainly attracts them. That part's true. But it binds the fat together and galvanises it to form a body." Molly froze. They had been write. The fat had literally walked away.

Penny, however, had no such foreknowledge. "What do you mean, a body?" she asked dubiously.

Foster's voice grew more smug. "I am surprised you never asked about my name. I chose it well. Foster. As in foster mother. And these are my children."

Molly couldn't stay back anymore. Putting a hand on the Doctor's shoulder to let him know to stay down, she lifted her head cautiously and peeked through the window. Foster had Penny tied to a chair, with two guards standing behind her, and on her desk was a small, oddly cute creature that appeared to made of fat.

Penny stared at it with evident disgust. "You're kidding me. What the hell is that?"

Foster smiled, the expression looking dangerous and predatory. "An Adipose," she said almost fondly. Molly was distracted by a face peeking in from the door to the office. Molly ducked down before she could be seen.

"There's someone else out there," she hissed to the Doctor.

"Who?"

"Dunno," she replied. "But I think it was the same woman I saw at the call center. Some ginger lady I saw, looked like she was sneaking around too. Maybe another reporter?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Better take a look then." He looked up cautiously, freezing in shock as he saw the woman Molly had indicated. She was surprised to see recognition in the Doctor's eyes. The Time Lord gaped at the window, speaking a name Molly had heard before, one he had told her, one of a person she had never expected to meet.

"Donna?!"

* * *

Yay, a wild Donna appears! Of course, I leave it on a cliffhanger (yeah no not really since you've all seen the episode) but next time I will finally, *finally*, be able to write Donna. *pumps fist*

Right, so, again, more Molly and Doctor filler moments. Sorry for choosing Sarah Jane Smith to mention rather than another, less visited Classic companion, but again, I have never seen Classic Who, and I'd never be able to do any of the other companions justice as I don't really know much about them.


	8. Partners in Crime: Part Three

There was an old Earth saying; "God works in mysterious ways." While the Doctor was not a believer in the Abrahamic God, the phrase worked well to describe the universe. He'd been subject to the universe's mysterious ways too many times to count, and in his seven hundred years of travel through time and space, he'd run into every coincidence, paradox, and strange occurrence the universe could possibly throw at him. He'd learned to stop being surprised or overwhelmed a long time ago. The universe just seemed to have it out for him.

But every once in a while, something came around that still managed to surprise him.

"Donna?!"

He was still trying to wrap his mind around it. Donna Noble, the temp from Chiswick, the loud, brash woman who'd snapped some sense into him after losing Rose, the woman who could've been a great companion. Who'd chosen to stay on Earth. The one he never thought he'd see again. And now here she was, looking just as surprised to see him as he was to see her.

"_Doctor?_" she mouthed from the window across the room, staring at him in clear shock.

He gaped helplessly, for once entirely lost for words. Molly peeked up again, trying to get a look at Donna, but the Doctor put a hand on her shoulder, asking her to stay down. Two of them would be more noticeable than one.

Donna's shocked expression changed into a huge, excited grin. "_Doctor!_"

All the Time Lord could manage was, "But what? What?" Donna continued to grin at him, clearly bursting with excitement. "What?"

The ginger woman gasped out, "_Oh my god!_"

She continued to grin as the Doctor continued to gape, unable to figure out how this had happened. "But how...?"

"_It's me!_" Donna mouthed, grinning and gesturing excitedly to herself.

The Doctor's thoughts were still in order enough for him to be offended. "_I can see that,_" he mouthed and gestured, a little offended she didn't think he'd remember her. Time Lord brain, he never forgot a face.

"_Oh, this is brilliant!_" the ginger woman gushed.

The Time Lord finally got his thoughts together enough to ask, "_What the hell are you doing there?_"

"_I was looking for you._"

The Doctor blinked. Why would she be looking for him? She hadn't wanted to go with him last time. _"That place was flooding and burning and they were dying, and you were stood there like, I don't know, a stranger. And then you made it snow. I mean, you scare me to death."_ That had haunted him for a while. The loss of Rose had made him darker, more dangerous, and he hadn't realized it until Donna shoved it in his face. Loss and loneliness brought out the worst in him. He wouldn't have realized, would've gotten a lot worse if Donna hadn't rejected him like that. She'd seen him for what he really was. Why would she come looking for him?

"_What for?_" he mouthed back.

"_I read it on the internet,_" Donna explained, gesturing wildly. The Doctor nodded to show he understood. "_Weird. Crept along. Heard them talking. Hid. You -_" She had started to gesture to Ms. Foster and her prisoner, but froze, staring at them in shock. As the Doctor turned to look at them, he understood why.

Foster was staring at the Time Lord and human with a raised eyebrow, looking from one to the other. "Are we interrupting you?" she asked pointedly.

Well, so much for hiding. "_Run!_" the Doctor warned Donna, then he turned to Molly. "We've been spotted." He used his sonic screwdriver to start the lift up again, bringing them back up to the roof.

"But what about that woman?" Molly asked as the lift rose. "Who was she?"

"An old friend," the Doctor explained distractedly. "Well, sort of, I'll tell you later." The lift reached the roof, jerking slightly as it stopped. The Time Lord hopped out, helping pull Molly out, then took off at a run towards the door leading back inside.

Looks like it was time to reunite with an old friend.

SCENEBREAK

As Molly followed the Doctor, she wondered about this woman, this Donna. Hadn't he mentioned meeting a Donna after losing Rose? But he said she'd stayed on Earth. What was she doing here now?

As they bolted down the hallway and towards a stairwell, they ran right into Donna, who was running from the other direction. The ginger woman let out a delighted laugh, pulling the Time Lord into a tight hug, which he returned with a grin. Molly had been tensed, uncertain whether to trust the woman who'd seemed to turn up out of nowhere, but the Doctor's grin relaxed her. He seemed to trust Donna. She shook her head a little. _Snap out of it, you don't need to be suspicious of everyone anymore._

The ginger woman pulled back, looking the Time Lord up and down with visible excitement. "Oh, my God. I don't believe it. You've even got the same suit!" She paused, giving the outfit an evaluating glance. "Don't you ever change?" she asked somewhat critically.

"Yeah, thanks, Donna. Not right now," the Time Lord said distractedly.

The ginger woman seemed to finally notice Molly. A bit of her confidence faded; for a moment, she looked uncertain. "Ah, found a friend have you?"

Molly opened her mouth to introduce herself, but was interrupted by the sound of guards coming up the stairs after them. The Doctor grabbed her hand, pulling her back up the stairs, and the companion grabbed Donna's hand an pulled her along. "Molly Hooper," she introduced herself as she ran, laughing slightly. Of course she'd meet one of the Doctor's old friends on the run, literally.

"Donna Noble," the ginger woman replied. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Molly laughed. As they came out the door back onto the roof, she asked Donna, "So, what're you doing here?"

She gestured to the Doctor. "Looking for alien boy over there. Hoped he might turn up here." Donna turned to the Doctor, who was sonicing the door shut, as she explained, "Because I thought, how do you find the Doctor? And then I just thought, look for trouble and then he'll turn up. So I looked everywhere. You name it. UFOs, sightings, crop circles, sea monsters. I looked, I found them all. Like that stuff about the bees disappearing, I thought, I bet he's connected." Once the door was locked, the Doctor ran for the lift, the two women following him. "Because the thing is, Doctor, I believe it all now. You opened my eyes. All those amazing things out there, I believe them all."

Molly chuckled. "Yeah, the Doctor'll do that to you," she agreed. Now that the suspicion had faded, she found herself curious. Here was a rare and glorious opportunity to meet someone from the Doctor's past.

"You're telling me" the ginger woman chuckled. She looked at Molly, looking as curious as the companion felt. "How'd you meet him, anyhow?"

"I'm a pathologist," Molly explained. "I was working in a hospital, and it sorta ended up on the moon." Donna blinked at her. "Long story, but he was there."

The Time Lord stepped onto the lift, turning back to the two women. "In you get!"

Molly started to step in, but Donna hung back, glancing at the lift critically. "What, in that thing?"

"Yes in that thing," the Doctor repeated a little irritably.

"But if we go down in that, they'll just call us back up again," Donna argued.

The Time Lord shook his head impatiently. "No, no, no, because I've locked the controls with a sonic cage," he assured her. "I'm the only one that can control it. Not unless she's got a sonic device of her own, which is very unlikely."

Molly, who still only had one leg in the lift, turn to Donna and offered her a hand. "Come on Donna, it's fine." The woman hesitated, then took the offered hand and allowed Molly to help her into the lift.

As the lift began to go down, Molly turned to Donna. "What about you?" she asked. "How'd you meet the Doctor? He told me a bit about it, but I never got to hear the whole story."

Before Donna could reply, the lift suddenly sped up, getting faster and faster until it was hurtling towards the ground. "What's happening?" Molly cried out.

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver, forcing the lift to stop. The all tumbled to the floor of the lift as it jerked to a halt, but the Time Lord was back on his feet in a moment. He stared up towards the roof, eyebrows raised incredulously. "Must have another sonic device. Oh come on, that's just not fair." He pouted almost childishly for a moment, then turned to the building. They'd stopped right beside a window; the Doctor started on it with his sonic screwdriver. "Let's try to get through here."

"Quickly," Molly urged, "before Foster tries to drop us again." The Doctor nodded to show he'd heard, still focused on the window.

After a few moments, he let out a frustrated growl. "Can't get it open!"

Donna looked around for a moment before picking up a discarded wrench. "Well smash it then!" As the Doctor continued with the sonic, she started whacking the glass with the wrench, to no effect.

Molly, too far from the window to contribute, instead kept watch. She saw what Foster was going to do a moment before it happened. "Doctor, watch out!"

Foster had cut the cable; as it snapped, the left half of the lift fell, causing it to dangle sideways. The Doctor and Molly had been able to keep a grip on the lift, but Donna was sent falling, saved from a painful death many feet below by grabbing onto the cable, dangling desperately by the strentgh of her arms alone.

"Doctor!" she called out desperately. Molly was clinging to the railing of the lift, unable to get to her to help.

"Hold on!" the Doctor ordered.

"I am!" Donna called back irritably.

He held his sonic screwdriver up, pointing it at the roof. Foster jerked back suddenly, something flying from her hand. As it fell towards them, Molly saw that it was a sonic... pen? The Doctor deftly caught it, then used it combined with the sonic screwdriver to finally open the window.

"This is all your fault!" Donna shouted up at him, irritable even through her fear. Molly was starting to see how she could've been good for a Doctor caught up in his grief. "I should've stayed at home!"

The Doctor slid the window open, slipping through. "I won't be a minute!" he called out to the two women. Molly looked down at Donna dangling, then slowly released one hand's grip on the lift. She began to maneuver herself so she was facing the ground, one leg wrapped around the railing to keep herself up. The companion reached for the cable, her fingers just able to wrap around the coarse wire. "Hold on Donna, I'm gonna pull you up!"

"Well hurry it up!" Donna snapped. Molly ignored it, knowing full well how snappy fear made someone. Instead, she put her focus into grabbing the cable and struggling to pull it up. It was heavy, not to mention the added weight of Donna, but both TARDIS life and the Year had made her stronger. Not with a struggle, she was finally able to pull the ginger woman up into the lift.

Donna kicked off her heels, sending them plummeting towards the ground below, then grabbed onto the railing, using her hands and feet to pull herself up. "This is completely mad," she grumbled as she clambered clumsily up. The Doctor, who'd seemed to peg onto Molly's plan, was up the window he'd climbed into, waiting to help pull Donna inside.

Once the ginger woman was safe, Molly began to turn herself back around, pulling herself quickly up the lift's railing until she was high enough to reach the window. The Doctor leaned out and grabbed her torso, pulling her through the window. She slithered gracelessly to the floor, panting from the effort.

Donna was also on the ground, glaring at the Doctor. "I was right," she grumbled after she got her breath back. "It's always like this with you, innit?"

The Time Lord grinned. "Oh yes!" He helped both women to her feet, then, after giving them a moment to catch their breath, took off for the door. Still tired from her rescue of Donna, Molly followed, the ginger woman right on their heels, grinning despite her earlier snark.

They soon made it back to the call centre, but their way was blocked by Foster and her two guards. The group slowed to a halt, staring warily at Foster. There was a tense silence as both groups sized each other up.

Foster coolly evaluated them, taking her glasses off. "Well then," she said crisply, "at last."

Molly inclined her head slightly, narrowed gaze focused on Foster. "Likewise," she said coolly.

The Doctor grinned easily, the friendly, harmless front he always showed to their enemies. "Nice to meet you, I'm the Doctor," he said cheerfully.

"And I'm Donna," the ginger woman put in, "and that's Molly."

"Partners in crime," Foster observed primly. "And evidently off-worlders, judging by your sonic technology."

"Oh yes, I've still got your sonic pen." The Doctor pulled it out, staring at it contemplatively. "Nice, I like it. Sleek, it's kinda sleek."

He showed it to the two women. Donna nodded, agreeing, "Oh it's definitely sleek."

Molly assessed it coolly. "Eh, call me old-fashioned, but I prefer the screwdriver," she quipped.

"Yeah, and if you were to sign your real name that would be...?" the Doctor prompted.

Foster stared at them evenly for a moment before replying, "Matron Cofelia of the Five-Straighten Classabindi Nursery Fleet. Intergalactic Class."

The Doctor's eyebrows raised. "A wet nurse," he realized with interest, "using humans as surrogates."

Foster's lips twitched slightly into a smug smile. "I've been employed by the Adiposian First Family to foster a new generation after their breeding planet was lost," she explained.

The Doctor's brow furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean lost?" he repeated, baffled. "How do you lose a planet?"

Foster shrugged dismissively. "Oh, politics are none of my concern. I'm just here to take care of the children on behalf of the parents."

"What, like an outer space super-nanny?" Donna asked dubiously.

"Yes, if you like," Foster allowed, sounding amused at the analogy.

"So... so those little things they're, they're made out of fat yeah," the ginger woman said slowly, working it out, "but that woman, Stacy Campbell, there was nothing left of her."

"Oh, in a crisis the Adipose can convert bone and hair and internal organs," Foster informed her matter-of-factly, as though they were talking about the weather. Not the murder of a woman. "Makes them a little bit sick, poor things," she added sympathetically.

Donna gaped at her. "What about poor Stacy?" she asked incredulously.

"That was murder," Molly told Foster coldly. "She didn't have to die!"

"Oh, hardly murder, Molly," Foster corrected her with a smirk. "Your species is hardly evolved enough for it to be called that. No, at best it's an inconvenience. Like stepping on an ant in your path."

Molly felt a flash of rage, but before she could say anything else, the Doctor cut her off. "Seeding a level five planet is against galactic law," he reminded Foster firmly.

The matron tipped her head slightly, regarding the Doctor with amusement. "Are you threatening me?"

"I'm trying to help you, Matron," the Doctor corrected gently, eyes dark with warning. "This is your one chance, because if you don't call this off, then I'll have to stop you."

"You see, Matron," Molly added firmly, "we have no problem with alien children trying for a chance at life. We're all for that. What we don't appreciate is you stealing the lives of innocent people to make that happen. This world, and others like it, are under our protection. So either you take your children to a planet where they can't do any harm, or we'll have to make you."

"Very noble of you," the matron said mockingly. "You think you can stop me. But you know, I hardly think you can stop bullets." The two guards raised their guns, pointing them stoically at the Doctor and his friends.

The Doctor held up his hands hastily, stammering out, "No, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. One more thing, before dying." He reached into his jacket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver, the sonic pen still in his other hand. Holding them carelessly, he asked, "Do you know what happens if you hold two identical sonic devices against each other?"

Foster paused, a muscle in her face twitching. "No," she admitted.

"Nor me," the Doctor said with a slightly manic grin. "Let's find out."

Without warning, he put the two together, turning them both on. A horrible screech emitted from them, reminding Molly of Manhattan. She flinched from the sound, but she was practiced enough to keep herself from slamming her hands to her ears. The companion grabbed Donna's hand, pulling her away towards the door. The Doctor rejoined them a few moments later, leading them back out into the stairwell.

They had gotten away; but now they had to stop Foster's plans.

* * *

Yep, another chapter! And there's gonna be one more part to this episode. Can't say it'll be a spectacularly long chapter, but whatever. Then, after that, Donna and Sherlock meeting! :D

Yay, I finally got to write Donna! I'll get to more snark with her soon, I hope. It's interesting writing her with Molly, and you'll see more of it later.


	9. Partners in Crime: Part Four

The Doctor led his companion and Donna back to the storage closet from earlier. As he used his sonic to get it unlocked and led them inside, Donna noted, "Well, that's one solution. Hide in a cupboard. I like it."

He turned and locked the door behind them, then squeezed past Molly and Donna to get to the panel from before. It had been bad enough with two people inside before, but now with three, it was positively cramped. He pulled back the panel to reveal the machine, explaining to Donna, "I've been hacking into this thing all day, 'cos the matron's got a computer core running through the center of the building. Triple deadlocked. But now I've got this," he held up the sonic pen to demonstrate, "I can get into it."

Moll groaned. "Nine hours we were in here," she told Donna. "Sitting the whole time. My legs were dead to the world by then." The ginger woman let out a snort of amusement. The Doctor was glad to see them getting along, though he could tell Molly was still a little suspicious of her, which worried him. The old Molly wouldn't be suspicious or mistrusting, certainly not on principle. He had wondered before if her odd behavior was due to her concussion, but it had been weeks, the effects of that had long worn off. No, whatever was wrong with Molly was the result of something else.

However, there wasn't time to focus on that now. The Time Lord turned his attention back to the machine, using both sonics to finally hack into the software. As he worked, he noticed Donna assessing him and Molly with something like nervousness. "Glad to see you found someone the," she commented lightly.

The Doctor nodded. "Yeah, Molly's brilliant." His companion smiled slightly at the praise. "Saved my skin more than once."

Donna snorted. "I can believe that." She turned to Molly. "This lump was useless when I met him. Moping and gaping like an idiot, nearly got killed trying to prove himself clever. Can't believe he's lasted this long."

"Yeah, he definitely has a talent for getting into trouble," Molly agreed with a chuckle.

The Doctor was beginning to feel like he was being ganged up on, so he decided to change the subject. "What about you, Donna? I thought you were gonna travel the world."

The temp shook her head. "Easier said then done," she told him ruefully. "It's like I had that one day with you and I was gonna change. I was gonna do so much. Then I woke up next morning, same old life. It's like you were never there. And I tried. I did try, I went to Egypt. I was gonna go barefoot and everything. And then it's all bus trips and guidebooks and don't drink the water and two weeks later you're back home. It's nothing like being with you." She sighed. "I must have been mad turning down that offer."

Caught up in his work with the machine, all he could manage was a distracted, "What offer?"

"To come with you."

"Come with me?" he repeated distractedly.

Apparently, Donna had taken that as an invitation, not a confused repeat. She let out a delighted squeal, and, even in the cramped closet, managed to pull him into a fierce hug. "Oh yes, please!" she cried, leaving the Doctor feeling slightly overwhelmed and very confused. Molly looked on with bemusement.

The Doctor let out a weak, "Right." He really wasn't sure how he'd gotten himself into this. Yes, he had offered to let Donna come on board before, and he thought she'd make a brilliant companion, but now it wasn't just him. Molly and Sherlock had made the TARDIS their home, admittedly temporarily in the latter's case, and it wouldn't be fair of him to invite someone on board without consulting them. Normally if he brought a second companion on board, it was someone the first companion knew, like with Mickey and Rose. He'd never had companions who didn't know each other before. How would that work?

He was mostly worried about Molly. Yes, Sherlock would be snarky and unpleasant to whoever walked through the doors, but he knew Donna was more than capable of dealing with him. Molly, on the other hand, had been very suspicious lately. She'd distrusted Donna when they'd first met, and she would've slugged Slade if given half the chance. Donna was great, but Molly was his companion, and his first concern. He didn't want to bring anyone on board if it would only make her more stressed and suspicious.

Suddenly, the machine began beeping rapidly. The Doctor pulled back from Donna and turned to it, eyes widening as a computerized voice informed him, "_Inducer activated._"

"What does that mean?" Molly asked worriedly.

"She's started the program," the Doctor realized, focused on the machine. "Started a massive-scale conversion, everyone at once. We must've forced her into action." He glared wildly at the machine, fiddling and using his sonic, desperate to somehow stop what he knew had already started. Out there, all around the country, the unsuspecting customers of Adipose Industries were watching little creatures of fat walk away from their bodies. "So far they're just losing weight, but the Matron has gone up to emergency pathogenesis."

Donna let out a slight gasp as she understood. "That's when they convert -"

"Skeletons, organs, everything," the Doctor finished grimly. "A million people are gonna die!" He stuck a hand in his pocket, rummaging for what he knew he needed. "Gotta cancel the signal!" With a triumphant grin, he pulled out the golden capsule with the pill inside. There was a computer chip on the end; he pulled it off and showed it to Molly and Donna. "This contains the primary signal. If I can switch it off the fat goes back to being just fat." He connected it to the machine and hacked into the signal with his sonic, discontinuing it.

For a moment, it seemed like they were safe. Then the machine began beeping again, more rapidly, and what was displayed on the monitor made the Doctor's hearts freeze in fear. "No, no, no, no, no!" he cried desperately, giving the machine a frustrated whack. "She's doubled it. I need..." he trailed off, mind racing, hearts pounding, searching for some way, any way, to save them. Running a hand through his hair, he knew, knew it was too late, knew there wasn't enough time, knew he had failed. "Haven't got time," he said hoarsely. "It's too far. I can't override it. They're all gonna die!"

Molly looked at him with wide eyes. "Doctor, calm down," she said shakily, "there's gotta be something we can do."

The Doctor shook his head. "There's nothing, Molly, no time to do anything. Got to double the base pulse, I can't -"

"Doctor, tell me," Donna cut him off. "What do you need?"

The Time Lord felt a burst of frustration. Donna was just trying to help, but there was nothing she could do, nothing, and nagging him wasn't going to change that. "I need a second capsule to boost the override," he explained, "but I've only got the one. I can't save them."

He turned back to look at her, only to see she'd pulled out a second capsule, identical to the first. For a moment, all he could do was stare at her, speechless. He could see Molly doing the same, equally shocked at the wonderful foresight that had saved them. Then he broke out into a huge grin. He took the capsule, plugging the chip quickly into the machine, and using the sonics to block the signal. The inducer shut down, the signal cut off, and the Doctor knew it was over. He scrolled quickly through the results, hit by a wave of relief as he realized no one had died. Scared, disoriented, and seriously de-weighted, but all still alive. Donna had saved them.

"They're alive," he laughed, the joy suddenly catching up with him. He turned and pulled Donna into a tight hug, his other arm reaching and pulling Molly in as well, needing to celebrate, to know that they had saved everyone, that everyone had lived. He needed more days like this. The two women hugged him back fiercely, everyone glad to be alive, giddy with the knowledge that almost everyone had lived.

Suddenly, there was the low rumble of an engine outside. Donna pulled back, startled. "What the hell was that?"

"I think that's the Adipose's ride home," the Doctor realized.

Donna's eyes widened in realization. "Fine," she breathed. "When you say nursery you don't mean a crèche in Notting Hill."

"Nursery _ship_," the Doctor corrected.

Before they could discuss it further, the machine powered up again, a message displayed on the monitor. The Doctor looked at it curiously, his interest sharpening as he read. Donna, however, didn't seem to see the need to stop. "Hadn't we better go and stop them?"

"Hang on. Instructions from the Adiposian First Family," the Doctor explained."

"The ones behind all this?" Molly asked curiously. "Are they going to try and start it all up again?"

The Doctor shrugged off the question, reading through everything quickly. "She's wired up the tower block to convert it into a levitation post," he explained. His eyebrows raised at the end. "Ooo. Oh."

"What is it?" Molly asked warily.

"We're not the ones in trouble now," the Doctor realized. "She is!" Without further explanation, he ran to the door, bolting back out into the hallway.

A million people had nearly died. He wasn't going to let there be another death tonight.

SCENEBREAK

Molly followed the Doctor back up to the roof, Donna right on their heels. She didn't know exactly what the Doctor had read, but if he was right, and the Matron was in danger, she knew he'd give her one last chance. That was who the Doctor was. She didn't like or trust the Matron, and a part of her whispered that it was safer for everyone to let her be punished. But that wasn't right, and she knew it. No matter what the Matron had done, more death would only make things worse.

When they finally reached the roof, an interesting sight awaited them. An enormous, saucer-shaped, UFO type spaceship loomed overhead, beams of light reaching down and touching the ground. They seemed to be levitation beams like in old space movies, because literally thousands and thousands of the Adipose creatures were being lifted up by the beams, floating peacefully up into the ships.

Donna looked at the Doctor uncertainly. "What you going to do then? Blow them up?"

Molly and the Doctor stared at her, horrified by the suggestion. "They're just children," the Doctor protested. "They can't help where they come from." Molly frowned. How could Donna suggest such a thing? She seemed compassionate before, but maybe she'd been wrong.

The ginger woman snorted. "Oh, that makes a change from last time."

The Doctor looked away, expression suddenly darker. "Yeah," was all he said. Molly looked at him curiously. What exactly had happened when Donna had met him? Sure, he'd been depressed when she'd met him, closed off and hurt by the loss of Rose, but he would never had blown up children. Donna must have really, really done him good, Molly realized. She owed her a lot.

She turned to the ginger woman, giving her a warm grin. "Great job with the capsule in there," she complimented.

Donna shrugged. "I got it off a guy in the call center," she explained. "Snuck in as Health and Safety."

Molly chuckled. "So did we!"

The ginger woman grinned back. "Great minds, eh? Oh, and thanks for helping me out back there with the lift."

"No problem." She looked at Donna, considering. The woman had shown clear distress over Stacy's murder, and she'd been brave and unafraid of telling off the Matron. She knew the Doctor had offered to make her a companion before, and she could see why. Yes, Donna was loud and brash and blunt, but she also cared. She would make a great companion.

The idea was still as weird as it had been with Astrid, though she somehow doubted Donna had any romantic interest in the Doctor, but Donna deserved a spot on the TARDIS. She'd just have to get used to having someone new around, that was all.

Satisfied, the companion turned to look at the departing Adipose. She was a little disturbed by how cute they were, knowing they had been made by human fat, but it wasn't their fault. They were actually pretty adorable, waving cutely at the watching humans and Time Lord as they were lifted home. They waved back, Donna clearly a little uncertain. "I'm waving at fat," she said, as though she couldn't quite believe it.

The Doctor chuckled. "Actually, as a diet plan, it sort of works." he joked.

Suddenly, Molly noticed the Matron being beamed up not far from the roof. "There she is!" she called to the Doctor. The Matron paused once she was level with the roof, glaring at the Doctor and company

The Time Lord called out desperately to her, "Matron Cofelia, listen to me."

The matron snorted. "Oh, I don't think so, Doctor," she said coldly. "And if I never see you again, it'll be too soon."

The Doctor let out a frustrated growl. "Oh, why does no one ever listen? I'm trying to help! Just get across to the roof. Can you shift the levitation beam?"

"What, so that you can arrest me?"

"So we can help you!" Molly snapped. "Just listen to the Doctor!"

"I saw the Adiposian instructions," the Doctor said, imploring her to listen, to understand. "They know it's a crime, breeding on Earth. So what's the one thing they want to get rid of? Their accomplice."

The Matron smiled, pride radiating from her. "I'm far more than that." She spread her arms wide, gesturing to all the floating Adipose as she claimed, "I'm nanny to all these children."

"Exactly!" the Doctor cried. "Mum and Dad have got the kids now. They don't need the nanny  
anymore."

The Matron's eyes widened, the smile slipping right off her face. Before she could say anything, the levitation beam around her disappeared. She hovered a moment, scared and betrayed. Then she fell screaming to the Earth below, landing with a sickening thud. Molly flinched from the sound, as did Donna, but the Doctor just watched with a dark expression, hanging his head. The companion put a hand on his shoulder, sorry they couldn't save her, but more worried about the effect it would have on the Doctor. Overall, she was really, really glad it was over. It had been another long day, another fight for life or death, and now the day was saved, and it was time to go home.

But not alone.

SCENEBREAK  
sa  
By the time they got out of the building, the Doctor had used his sonic screwdriver to alter the sonic pen, deactivating it and turning it into nothing more than a pen. He chucked it into the nearest bin he could find, then turned back to the two women, grinning. "I think you're right, Molly," he quipped, "the screwdriver's classic." He tossed it once for show, then put it safely back in his coat.

Molly chuckled. "Yeah, a sonic screwdriver's cool, but the pen was kinda pushing it."

Donna looked around at the street, at the people rejoicing that the ship was gone, or staring around in shock, unable to process what had happened. "Poor buggers," she said sympathetically. "But at least they're alive." Then she brightened. "To the TARDIS then, yeah? Come on!" She grabbed the Doctor's wrist, pulling him along, leaving Molly to follow, amused at the Doctor' overwhelmed expression.

When they reached the alley where they'd left the ship, Molly noticed for the first time a blue car parked nearby. Donna stared at it in shock. "That's my car!" she gasped, shock turning to amazement. "That is like destiny. And I've been ready for this." She hurried over to the trunk, pulling out what seemed like an insane number of suitcases. She dumped each one she pulled out unceremoniously into the Doctor's arms, explaining, "I packed ages ago, just in case. Because I thought, hot weather, cold weather, no weather. He goes anywhere. I've gotta be prepared."

Molly had to fight to hold back laughter. The Doctor was nearly overwhelmed by his pile of suitcases, his head forced to tilt back and look up. He looked quizzically at the pile in his arms, as though unsure how it'd gotten there. "You've got a... a hatbox," he observed, puzzled.

Donna threw out her arms, grinning. "Planet of the Hats, I'm ready." She started towards the TARDIS, turning to face them when she reached the doors. "I don't need injections, do I? You know, like when you go to Cambodia. Is there any of that? Because my friend Veena went to Bahrain, and she..." She trailed off as she saw the way the Doctor was staring at her, morose and silent. "You're not saying much," she observed quietly.

The Time Lord sighed, putting her suitcases gently to the ground. "No, it's just... we've had an odd time of it lately."

"You don't want me," Donna guessed sadly.

The Doctor shook his head quickly. "I'm not saying that," he assured her. "It's just, you know, it isn't just me anymore. I've got to look out for Molly and Sherlock, and they've been through some rough spots in the last year. I don't know if it's fair to bring someone else into that." He gave Molly a sad smile, then turned back to Donna. "I mean, I'd love to bring a mate on board, but I don't know if it'd be fair."

Molly smiled back, touched at his concern, but unfortunately Donna had misheard. She jerked back, gaping at him. "You wouldn't mind _mating_?!" she repeated, outrage obvious in her tone.

The Doctor's eyes widened. He quickly tried to backtrack. "_Bringing_ a mate," he corrected hastily.

Donna glared at him, clearly outraged and insulted. "Well you're not mating with me, sunshine!" she snapped, her glare causing the Doctor to actually back up a step. Molly couldn't hold back her laughter this time. The Doctor was such an impressive and imposing figure; it was so rare to see him overwhelmed like this. It could be good for him. Oh yes, she could definitely get used to having Donna around.

"_A_ mate, _a_ mate!" the Doctor insisted quickly, looking mortified at the implications.

Donna huffed, looking relieved and a little embarrassed. "Well, just as well," she blustered, "because I'm not having any of that nonsense. I mean, you're just a long streak of nothing." She waved her hands to demonstrate how skinny he was. "You know, alien nothing." Molly's sides were hurting at this point, and the Doctor shot her a slight glare as she bent over laughing.

Once she got her breath back, she told the Doctor, "Let her come."

He looked at her uncertainly. "You sure?" he asked sympathetically. Molly was touched by his concern, and how he clearly put her emotional status above bringing a new friend on board.

"It's fine," she assured him. She gave Donna a warm smile, pushing away the small voice of doubt in her head. "You helped save the world tonight, Donna. If that doesn't merit a spot on the TARDIS, I don't know what will."

The Doctor hesitated, then nodded. Donna looked between him and Molly hopefully. "I can come?"

The Time Lord grinned. "Yeah. Course you can, yeah. I'd love it."

Donna let out a squeal of joy. She started to hug the Doctor, then pulled back, as though something had occurred to her. "Car keys."

The Doctor's brow furrowed. "What?"

The ginger woman laughed. "I've still got my mum's car keys." She started off down the street, calling over her shoulder, "I won't be a minute."

The Doctor stared after her for a minute, smiling. Then he turned back to Molly. "You sure you're all right with this?" he asked worriedly."

Molly shrugged. She was nervous, yes, and maybe just a little bit worried about Donna getting on better with the Doctor with her, but that was just nerves from the day's fight, surely. She wasn't a child, there was no need to be jealous. She'd deal with it. "It'll be great," she told him.

He searched her expression a moment, looking like he didn't believe her, but after a few moments he said nothing. Molly couldn't help feeling something was between them, something unsaid or unknown. She'd felt so close to him the day before, so open, but now she could feel a wall there, neither saying what they really thought or suspected. She knew part of where it had come from, but as ever, it was hard to guess what the Doctor was thinking. Maybe Donna's arrival would help things. _Or make them worse,_ the voice in her head taunted, but she ignored it.

While Donna was gone, the two travelers worked together to load all of her things into the TARDIS. Molly was amazed anyone could pack this much into a tiny trunk. At one point, she checked to make sure it wasn't bigger on this inside. They had everything inside the console room by the time Donna returned. She was grinning, not looking nervous about leaving home and family behind. "Off we go, then," she said cheerfully.

As she walked into the TARDIS, the Doctor told her grandly, "Here it is. The Tardis. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside -"

"Oh, I know that bit," Donna interrupted him impatiently. "Although frankly, you could turn the heating up." Molly let out a snort of laughter.

The Doctor looked a little hurt at being denied a wide-eyed reaction to the TARDIS, but he shook it off after a moment. He stepped over to the console, grinning at Donna. "So, whole wide universe, where do you want to go?"

The ginger woman grinned back. "Oh, I know exactly the place," she assured him.

"Which is?"

"Two and a half miles that way."

SCENEBREAK

The Doctor entered the coordinates, flying them over Donna's house. There on the hill, just where she said he'd be, was Donna's grandfather, an elderly man with white hair in a red hat. Odd, but somehow he looked familiar. He seemed ecstatic when he noticed the ship, even more so when he saw Donna. "He can see us," Molly told the new companion. "Go ahead, wave."

They all waved at the man on the hill, who looked close to tears, practically beaming at the night sky. "Grandad's always been there for me," Donna said fondly, looking a little teary-eyed herself. "Great man. If anyone should know where I'm going and why, it's him."

They hovered for a minute, then flew away, ready for their next adventure, with a new passenger on board. In all the excitement, Donna Noble completely forgot her chance encounter with a blond woman.

She would not remember it for a long time.

* * *

Partners in Crime is finally done! Sorry for sticking so close to canon, but I warned you that would happen. Now, however, anything is subject to change, and hopefully a lot of it. That'll mean possibly slower updates as I try to figure out how exactly to change this or that, but it should be better quality hopefully.

And yes, for everyone asking, the awaited Sherlock and Donna snark battle is just around the corner.


	10. Interlude Two: A Long Expected Meeting

After visiting Donna's grandfather and getting her set up in a room, they reconvened in the console room. "So, time to pick up Sherlock I guess," the Doctor commented.

Donna looked at him curiously. "Who's that then? You mentioned him before."

Molly hesitated, wondering how to describe the detective. "Er, another passenger," she finally said. "Only temporary."

"He's a friend of Molly's, needed somewhere to hide," the Doctor explained. "We dropped him off in London before going to check out the Adipose."

The new companion listened with interest. "And he's on temporary you say?" she asked. When Molly nodded, she shook her head. "Can't imagine going through trips like that and just leaving it behind."

Molly shrugged. "He's got his own life. It's almost as interesting at this one, actually. He gets in nearly as much trouble."

Donna grinned. "Sounds interesting."

"He is that," Molly agreed.

"Right then, let's pick him up then, so we can get to the interesting stuff," Donna urged, turning to glare impatiently at the Doctor. Molly held back a chuckle at the Time Lord's expression.

He blinked a few times, then turned to the console. "Right, to London then," he agreed. The Doctor started up the TARDIS, sending the ship into the usual shaking and convulsions. The Doctor and Molly were practiced enough to hold onto the console and keep their footing, but Donna was thrown to the ground, cursing loudly. The companion held back a chuckle at her expense; the redheaded companion looked irritated and embarrassed enough without Molly laughing at her.

As the ship stilled, Donna got to her feet, rubbing her arm and grumbling. "Bloody hell, I forgot what it's like in this thing." She threw a deadly glare at the Time Lord and demanded irritably, "Who in their right mind let you behind the wheel of this thing?"

The Doctor glared back, clearly irritated with the slight on his driving skills. Molly decided to intervene before he said something he'd regret. "So, I guess Sherlock's expecting us then. She hurried to the door, pulling it open, ignoring the irritated Time Lord and companion behind her.

They'd landed in a large, crowded street, full of people even at the late hour. Sherlock had given them very exact coordinates, and now Molly could see why. The TARDIS was parked directly under a roof that kept them from sight overhead. Though she wondered who exactly they were hiding from and where they were watching from, she couldn't help but be impressed that Sherlock had memorized the exact coordinates of a roof that was large enough to hide the TARDIS.

She peered out into the crowd, searching for the familiar form of the detective. For several moments, she saw nothing. There was a part of the crowd she almost didn't want to look at. It took a few moments to realize why; Sherlock must be wearing his TARDIS key, using the perception filter. It kept him from being noticed by most of the crowd, but Molly had used those keys for a year, and she knew how to see past the filter. Now that she knew what she was looking for, it only took a few moments to spot the detective. He was still in the brown coat and hat from earlier, the coat collar up and his gaze shifting around furtively as he made a bee-line for the TARDIS.

Molly waved him over, grinning as he got closer. "Good to see you're in one piece," she said cheerfully.

Sherlock just snorted. "Like there was any doubt," he said drily.

The companion sobered a little as she took in the dark, soft vulnerability in Sherlock's eyes. She was about to ask what had gone wrong when she realized – of course. He'd gone to visit John. The only other time she'd seen that look in his eyes was when John had died during the Year. He must have been dying to see John ever since the timeline was reestablished, but it had to be killing him that he couldn't tell John he was alive or even talk to him.

Of course, she was tactful enough not to bring it up. Instead she asked, "Everything got taken care of alright?"

Sherlock nodded tersely. "For now." With that, he pushed past Molly into the TARDIS. The companion followed him in, watching him curiously as he noticed Donna. The detective's eyes narrowed, gaze suddenly sharp and intelligent as he did his customary scan of the new companion.

The Doctor grinned as Sherlock walked in. "Ah, good to have you back on board. Sherlock, this is Donna Noble, she's gonna be traveling with us then."

The detective gave a little jerky nod, gaze still fixed on the temp. Donna looked a little uncomfortable with his intense stare, eyes narrowing irritably. After a few moments, she scoffed, "Sheesh, you're a quiet one then. Don't I at least get a name?"

Sherlock's lips quirked into a smirk, knowing almost vicious in its eagerness. Molly closed her eyes, fighting back a sigh. She knew what was going to come next, and based on the little she knew about Donna, it wasn't going to be pretty.

With the same smirk, Sherlock replied, "I assumed as an old friend of the Doctor's he would've already told you."

The Doctor seemed to have finally caught onto the danger of the situation. He gave a little warning, "Sherlock," but Donna spoke overtop of him.

"So the Doctor told you about me then?" she asked uncertainly, clearly getting creeped out by Sherlock's behavior.

Sherlock's smirk turned smug. "I'd hardly need him to," he said in a patronizing tone, "it's obvious. You're clearly not surprised by the state of the TARDIS, which suggests you're either used to such technology or you've been inside before. Since you're obviously just a human, that leaves the option of you being a former guest on the TARDIS. A child could figure it out."

Molly shot the detective a quick glare, hoping to head him off before it got worse, but Donna had already gotten ruffled by something he'd said. "What'dya mean, _just_ human?" she snapped, looking offended.

The detective raised an eyebrow, someone looking even more patronizing than before. "Do I really have to spell it out?" he asked in a condescending tone.

"_Sherlock_," Molly warned in a low voice, using the I'm-in-charge-damnit-so-shut-the-hell-up tone she'd picked up over the Year.

He just rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, I've been stuck here for two weeks, I haven't worked my mind like this in days." Ignoring Molly and the Doctor, he turned back to Donna, who looked like she wasn't sure how deadly a glare to throw at him just yet. In his rapid-fire, clinical tone, he began, "The outfit suggests a desk job, probably as a secretary of some kind judging by the mostly priced attire and the indents on your arms and hands, which suggest you spend a lot of time typing. They're fainter now, fading, which suggests you've been out of work for some time." The detective began moving, circling around Donna, looking her up and down like a particularly interesting bit of machinery to be picked apart by the eye. "Your age and your clothes suggest you've been working this job for some time, which suggests a low intelligence and an inability to move up in the world, clearly -"

There was a resounding _crack_ as Donna slapped Sherlock full across the face. Molly's eyes widened, and she saw the Doctor wince in sympathy. The detective clearly hadn't been expecting it; he reeled back, eyes wide with surprise, hand rising unbidden to his cheek.

Donna's nostrils were flaring, cheeks burning with fury and embarrassment as she bellowed, "Listen up you stick insect, I don't know who the hell you are, but I don't need to stand here and be insulted by you!"

Sherlock's face worked quickly to regain it's cold indifference, though Molly noticed he took a slight shuffling step back from Donna. "You're the one who came on board," he pointed out stiffly. "It's hardly my fault what I can deduce."

"You prat," Donna growled, "that doesn't mean you need to go blurting out every bloody thing that comes to mind. What're you, five?" Sherlock managed to looked insulted on top of everything else, which made it all the harder for Molly to watch with a straight face. Suddenly, her eyes narrowed. "Hang on a tic, I know you! Knew I'd heard that name Sherlock before, you're that detective bloke that killed himself, right? I read it in the tabloids, they said you were a fake. How the hell're you walking around then?" She looked almost accusingly at the Doctor. "Is he your cousin or something? It'd fit, he's skinnier than you. So what, you Time whatsits can survive drops off three story buildings or something?"

"I'm not an alien," Sherlock said with growing annoyance.

"Yeah? Well you're sure acting like it mate," Donna threw right back at him.

"Just because I possess greater intelligence than you doesn't automatically make me non-human," he growled irritably. "The limits of human intelligence exceed quite beyond yours."

"No, but it does make you an ass," Donna retorted. She turned back to the Doctor, glare fierce enough to make even him back up a step. "How long did you say he was staying again?"

The Doctor struggled for an answer, throwing a quick, scared glance at Molly, which she returned. They both said the same unspoken thing; _Oh god, what have we done?_

* * *

Everyone, and I do mean *everyone* who commented seems to have been looking forward to this moment. I'm sorry it took so long to post, but have I mentioned how hard Sherlock's dialogue is to write? Even now I'm not sure whether I made him to mean or not, but I guess I'll leave that for you to judge. Plus I was working on some of my Lion King stuff between the last chapter and now.

I hope this lived up to everyone's expectations. I tried to make it as epic as possible, though I wish I'd added more Donna in there. Tell me what you think, and give suggestions, 'cause this is by no means the last time Donna Nobble and Sherlock Holmes will snark at each other.


	11. The Snows of Paldoon: Part One

Donna had wanted to start her first proper TARDIS adventure as soon as possible, but it had been a full day for everyone involved, so the Doctor insisted on everyone turning in for the night. Once they were safe in the Time Vortex, he told Molly to lead the new companion to the vacant rooms. Sherlock had already slunk off, probably to try and take apart the TARDIS again. Molly wasn't too worried; the ship would keep him from causing too much damage.

The companion led Donna through the halls, the two walking in silence for a while. Molly hesitated before turning to the new companion and saying, "Sorry about Sherlock earlier, he can be a bit of a prat sometimes."

Donna snorted. "A bit?" she repeated doubtfully. Molly laughed in agreement. "Seriously though, what do you put up with him for? And how'd he know all that stuff about me anyway? What's he, a mind reader?"

Molly chuckled. "No. Sherlock's just... observant. It's sorta hard to explain, but he just looks at little things about you, you know, like ink on your hand or your outfit, and uses them to come to logical conclusions about you."

The ginger woman looked at her dubiously. "What, my outfit told him all that?"

The companion laughed. "It's a bit more than that, but yeah, sorta."

Donna stared at her for a few moments, obviously trying to decide whether she was joking or not, before shaking her head. "That's just creepy," she decided.

"A little bit," Molly admitted. "You get used to it after a while. Except when he gets really personal, that's still kinda awkward, but tell him off enough and eventually he gets the message."

"Good to hear," the ginger woman said with a grin. Molly got the feeling she wasn't going to be shy about telling the detective off. Whether that would be good or bad for everyone involved still remained to be seen, but Molly sure it would at least start out amusing. Plus, Sherlock could do with the attitude check.

They eventually found the right hallway, and Donna selected a room. Before Molly could leave to retire to her own room, Donna stopped her. She hesitated before saying, "Listen, I meant what I said before, to the Doctor. Whatever's going on between you two, I don't want to get between that."

Molly had to think for a moment before she realized what Donna meant. Her eyes widened. "No, no, we're not like that!" she corrected Donna quickly. "We're not together. He's my best friend, but no."

To her surprise, Donna nodded. "Oh, I know, I mean it's obvious you two aren't together. All I meant is, you were here first, and I don't want to break the group dynamic or whatever." Molly was surprised by how deeply sincere she sounded, so different from the loud, brash woman who'd slapped Sherlock minutes earlier. There was uncertainty there too; Molly realized she must be feeling a little awkward coming into an established group, though nothing in her earlier behavior had pointed to it.

Molly gave her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. We're glad to have you on board, even Sherlock, even if it's just to break the monotony."

Donna grinned, looking happier. "Great. See you tomorrow then?"

She nodded. "Tomorrow." Donna retreated into her room, leaving Molly to go to hers. She still didn't know Donna Noble very well, but she felt a little better after their talk, the little whispers of jealousy dying down. This was all going to work out, she knew it.

Tomorrow, they would take Donna Noble on her first trip on the TARDIS. After that, who knew?

SCENEBREAK

The next morning, Molly was surprised to see she wasn't the last to the console room, as was the norm. The Doctor and Sherlock were already there, but Donna was nowhere to be seen.

She headed up to the console, laying a hand on the controls. She could feel the steady _thrum_ of the engines under her feet, could hear the TARDIS's low _hum_. The companion smiled fondly at the console, lazily flipping a few switches. In the Year, one of the harder adjustments to make was falling asleep without the familiar song of the engine echoing around her. She was glad to have it back.

"Morning," the Doctor greeted cheerfully. Sherlock didn't bother with a greeting, which was what Molly was used to, so she let it go. For a moment she found herself missing Greg, and the dynamic they'd had during the Year, but she shook the feeling off. Today was Donna's first trip, no need to spoil it by being nostalgic.

"Morning," she returned with a smile. "Where's Donna?"

The Time Lord shrugged. "Still asleep, I guess."

As he spoke, the companion herself emerged from the hallway, coffee in hand and looking somewhere in between totally groggy and passably awake. Glaring around the console room, she grumbled, "What time is it?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, reminding her in a slightly smug tone, "We're in the Time Vortex, Donna. It isn't any time at all."

"Oh, stuff it," Donna growled irritably.

The Doctor grinned. "Glad to see you up!" he said cheerfully. Doubling back around the console, he started up the flight sequence, throwing a grin at Donna. "So, anywhere at all in time and space, anyplace you want to start?"

Looking a little more awake at the prospect of a trip, Donna shrugged. "Not like I've got a map of the universe in my head," she pointed out. "Dunno, surprise me."

Molly grinned. "Looks like it's back to the original plan then."

The Doctor looked at her, brow furrowing as he asked, "What do you mean?"

"Before the Adipose, didn't you say we were going to see the Crystal Snows of Paldoon?"

The Time Lord's eyes lit up. "Oh right, yeah, Paldoon!" He started up the sequence, Molly helping with the parts she remembered. The Doctor paused, looking thoughtful. "Great name for a planet, Paldoon, fun word."

Molly rolled her eyes. "Let's focus on actually getting there," she suggested with a chuckle.

Together, they sent the TARDIS flying through time and space. Donna was better prepared for the shuddering of the ship; Molly saw her grab onto the railing before she could be thrown off her feet again. The companion felt a rush of excitement mixed with apprehension; how would their first outing with the new companion go?

After a few moments, they landed with a slight _thud_. There was a pause, Donna looking ready to burst with excitement, the Doctor sharing a quick grin with each companion, Molly feeling an even sharper jab of apprehension. Then it was replaced by eagerness, and with a grin, she hurried for the door, followed closely by the Doctor.

As the other two companions approached, the Doctor whirled to face them, grinning widely. "Donna Noble," he announced grandly, "behind these doors, could be anything. All of time and space. You ready?" Molly couldn't help but chuckle at his grand tone, re

Donna grinned. "'Course, what do you think I'm doing here?"

Sherlock, looking unimpressed, just rolled his eyes. "Are you going to prattle on about it all day, or are you going to open the door?" he asked drily.

The Doctor shot him a sour glare. "Killjoy," he complained, before turning back to the doors, pulling them open. Molly followed him out, blinking as a bright light hit her eyes.

As her eyes adjusted, she was able to see that it was early morning, the sky still lightly painted with pinks and blues and oranges. Two moons were still palely visible, a larger sun hanging high above them in the sky.

But that wasn't way drew her attention. The sky wasn't half as gorgeous as the ground. A vast blanket of snow stretched as far as the eye could see, but it wasn't like any snow she'd seen. Instead of a soft white, it was a glittering expanse of crystalline colors, pale pinks, blues, purples, all shimmering and glinting in the sunlight. It was like someone had littered the ground with fairy dust. The combination of snow and sky made and the pale twin moons for a breathtaking sight.

Donna drew in a sharp breath as she stepped out of the TARDIS, eyes wide with wonder as she drank in the sight of her first alien planet. The normally loud woman seemed softer, younger somehow, as she gazed silently at the snowy planet. As she watched her awe-struck reaction, Molly couldn't help but feel her own sense of wonder. There was something about watching someone else see the universe for the first time that made it seem all the more precious. It made you look with fresh eyes, trying to glean the wonder they saw.

She shot the Doctor a curious look. Was that what she had been like that first time, in a little alley in Elizabethan London? Was that why the Doctor took on companions like her, to experience that second-hand wonder? The Time Lord caught her glance; when he returned it with a knowing grin, his excitement tangible, she knew she was right.

"Whoa," Donna breathed. "We're on a real alien planet." She let out a little laugh, grinning. "Me, Donna Noble, on a real, actual alien planet!" The new companion laughed in delight.

Molly grinned. "Pretty cool, huh?"

The Doctor whirled to face him, his coat twirling behind him. "Donna Noble, Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes," he announced grandly, "welcome to Paldoon." Sherlock said nothing, aloof as ever, but Molly could tell even he was impressed.

Donna crouched down and scooped up a handful of the able, watching with fascination as it filtered through her fingers. She looked up at the Doctor, tone curious as she asked, "What's this then, alien snow? Why's it look like that?"

"It's a different liquid than water," the Doctor explained, "a pretty rare substance actually. Not worth much, mind, just pretty to look at. This planet has a lot of rare minerals under the surface" He went on a bit longer about the properties of the snow, explaining why it stayed around even when it was barely chilly out, but Molly tuned him out. Instead, she focused on the snow itself, and how the sunlight danced on the surface. It was truly a remarkable sight. Finally, Donna stopped the Doctor's rant, grumbling that she'd been looking for an answer not a science lesson. The Doctor looked a bit put out, but got over it quickly.

"Right," he said, slinging an arm around Molly and Donna's shoulders, "lets go."

"Go where?" Sherlock asked with an eyebrow raised.

The Doctor shrugged. "Dunno. Walk around a bit, you know, see the sights."

The detective wrinkled his nose. "We're here to sightsee?" he asked distastefully.

"What, something wrong with stopping and seeing the universe a bit?" the Time Lord asked a little irritably.

Sherlock sniffed. "Just seems a touch mundane for your track record, Doctor." The Doctor stiffened, but Sherlock just turned up his coat collar and followed without complaint. Shrugging, the Time Lord let it go, falling into step with Donna and Molly.

The detective still looked a little sulky, which irked Molly a bit. Just because he thought seeing a gorgeous new planet was too boring for him didn't mean he had to rain on everyone else's parade. "I don't see what good sulking's going to do you," she told him testily.

He looked up at her with a glare. Feeling a little guilty, she fell back into step with him, nudging him with her shoulder. "Don't worry, all our adventures start out like this. No matter how innocent it starts out trouble always seems to find us. I'll bet anything, before the day's out we'll be running from some alien tribe out for blood."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "So you just walk around and wait for something interesting to pop up?"

"Pretty much," Molly confirmed.

"Doesn't seem like a very reliable method of alleviating boredom," Sherlock commented. "But it'll do for now."

"Oh, but it's not just about finding puzzles to solve Sherlock," the Doctor told him, grinning at him over his shoulder. "It's about seeing what the universe has to offer, exploring the wonders of time and space, smelling the occasional rose. Mind, trouble can be fun too."

Donna rolled her eyes. "You're mad, the lot of you," she declared. "Running headlong into danger."

"You're the one who wanted to come," the Doctor reminded her.

She chuckled. "I must be bonkers too then." The new companion grinned, putting her free arm around Molly's shoulder, Molly putting hers around Sherlock and forcing him to join the group. "Come on then, let's see what there is to see."

SCENEBREAK

They walked for a time, enjoying the vast fields of crystalline snow, the little hills and snow-dusted shrubs the landscape had to offer. It was all very beautiful, and, as it turned out, just as good as making snowballs as Earth snow. It didn't take long for them to get wrapped up in a snowball fight, the three of them laughing and generally goofing off. It was good to know that Donna was as willing to play and make a fool of herself as much as her or the Doctor. Sherlock stayed off to the side, no matter how many times they threw a snowball his way, though Molly could've sworn she'd seen the odd snowball fly from his direction.

Molly had just been hit by Donna; smirking, she quickly scooped up a handful of the stuff, packing it together and letting it fly. She got the angle wrong; it flew past Donna, but it didn't just roll off into the bushes; instead, it hit a wide-eyed bystander square in the face.

The game paused as the four travelers turned to look at the creature they hadn't noticed before. It almost looked like an anthropomorphic chipmunk, minus the striping, and with a muzzle more like a dog's, short but tapering. It was maybe the height of Molly's waist, with wide brown eyes and little furry paws. It wore what looked like a monk's robe, with a long, wolf-like tail visibly poking out. It stared back at them, silent, eyes wide with what looked like terror.

The Doctor smiled encouragingly, approaching the creature with a warm grin. "Oh, hello there! Didn't realize we'd gotten so close to your camp, I apologize."

Donna looked at him in surprise. "What, you know him?"

"He's a Chakdaw," the Doctor explained, "it's their planet. Not as advanced as humans, but intelligent." He turned back to face the Chakdaw, still smiling warmly. "You're the camp scout aren't you? Sorry if we got too close, but I promise, we don't mean any harm."

The Chakdaw hesitated, whiskers twitching, before beckoning them forward with a paw. He glanced around furtively, posture making him seem almost nervous, before turning and padding off, leaving the travelers to follow.

The Doctor frowned, straightening back to his full height. "That's odd," he noted, brow furrowing slightly. "Chakdaws aren't usually that skittish."

Donna shrugged. "Maybe he can't understand English," she suggested.

"No, the TARDIS translation matrix translated our words for him," the Doctor explained off-handedly, "and the Chakdaws have a language as complex and advanced as English. Something's not right here." He continued to look thoughtful for another moment, then his grin returned as he shot Molly a mischievous glance. "Well, no point standing around talking about it. Allons-y!" He followed after the Chakdaw, leaving the three companions to follow.

Molly chuckled, shaking her head at the Doctor's behavior. She turned to Sherlock and Donna, the former looking intrigued, the latter looking dubious. "See, I told you, trouble finds us wherever we go." With that, she turned to follow the Doctor, the two companions trailing after her.

Donna's first trip had just gotten a little more complicated.

* * *

EDIT: Changed a line during Donna and Molly's talk.

Well, I actually wasn't planning on going into original episodes just yet, but I couldn't think of that many ways to alter the Fires of Pompeii, what with the fixed ending and all. Then I remembered the Doctor mentioning the Crystal Snows of Paldoon, a little line I'd snuck in before, and decided to go with that. Sorry for the wait by the way, I was trying to think up a plot.

I hope you enjoyed all the Donna and Team TARDIS interaction, and how everyone's sort of slipping into place. Sherlock too has to find his place in the dynamic - remember, he was only on the TARDIS maybe a day before the Year began, so he never got to solidify his place there.

I hope you guys like the plot I come up with. This will be a one-episode plot, not a two-parter like the Last Tsar.

Oh, and I named the Chakdaws after a skating move called a Choctaw, which is the most difficult and evil thing I have ever had to do in figure skating and is currently on the test I'm trying to pass. If anyone here knows what I'm talking about, please let me know, I'd love to be able to rant about the evilness of Choctaws.


	12. The Snows of Paldoon: Part Two

They followed the Chakdaw as it led them through the snow, occasionally looking back at them with wide, frightened eyes. Molly couldn't help but wonder what could have it so scared. It couldn't be them; the Chakdaw was interacting with them willingly. So what was it?

The Chakdaw soon led them to what Molly presumed was the Chakdaw camp. The word "camp" had made her think something in terms of a small village, but this was altogether larger and grander. A towering structure, sculpted of crystalline ice and snow, loomed high overhead. It looked almost like a church with all the spires and arches. Sherlock's eyebrows raised slightly at the sight, and the Doctor let out a low whistle.

Surrounding it were several smaller, more ramshackle homes. They were still gorgeous to look at in their crystal colors and their smooth, snowy appearance, but they were definitely more humble than the grand structure behind them. There were no other Chakdaws in sight, but the Chakdaw leading them still seemed nervous, eyes darting around anxiously and ears perked. He lifted his nose to the air, taking a few hesitant sniffs, before cautiously continuing into the camp. Molly and the Doctor shared a baffled glance. What was going on?

The Doctor cleared his throat before remarking, "Bit quiet around here, isn't it?" The Chakdaw whirled to face him, eyes wide with terror, paws wildly gesturing in a silent attempt to tell the Doctor to stop talking. Looking a little offended, the Time Lord fell silent. The Chakdaw looked around wildly, but when it was clear no one had heard the Doctor's outburst, he relaxed slightly and continued on.

The Chakdaw cautiously led them towards one of the icy huts, head twitching this way and that on the lookout for his unnamed fear. Apparently satisfied the coast was clear, he ducked inside the opening of the hut, leaving the group to follow him in.

The interior of the hut was empty of any furniture besides a nest of what looked like wool. There were shelves dug into the icy walls of the hut, where food and clothing were stored, but other than that the place was empty. Molly opened her mouth to ask what they were doing there, but the Chakdaw waved his paws wildly, gesturing for her not to talk, so she reluctantly kept her mouth shut.

The creature paused for a moment, listening, before heading over to his woolen nest. With a bit of effort, he pulled the nest aside to reveal a hole below leading to some sort of tunnel. It stepped into the tunnel, beckoning for the group to follow. The travelers shared a quick glance, Donna confused and worried, Sherlock curious, and the Doctor excited. Molly felt the usual excitement of an adventure, but also unease. The Chakdaw's obvious terror and strange silence were rubbing her the wrong way. Something was deeply wrong here, and she had a feeling they were going to find themselves right in the middle of it, as usual.

One by one, the travelers followed the Chakdaw into the tunnel. They had to squeeze themselves through the Chakdaw-sized hole, but once they were through, the tunnel widened and became comfortably spacious. Molly could see the textured walls of the cave, how they'd clearly been carved from hundreds and hundreds of claws, chipping away at the ice little by little. She wondered with awe how long that must have taken, and how many Chakdaws had worked on it. It must have taken years to build.

She wasn't given long to stand in awe. The Chakdaw kept them moving, gaze darting nervously around the tunnel. There wasn't any source of light, so once they moved farther under the hut, they were walking in total darkness. Molly had to keep a hand on the wall to keep herself walking straight, and as they started taking side passages and twists and turns, even that didn't keep her from bumping into the walls. The Chakdaw seemed to be relying on practice, or perhaps his night vision allowed him to see. Either way, he led them through the dark without complaint.

They were only in the dark for a few minutes, though it seemed longer. Not long after, Molly was able to see light in the tunnel ahead. As they got closer, it got brighter, until the tunnel opened up into a wide cavern lined with lanterns. Other Chakdaws milled around, huddled together or sitting on their own, looking up at the travelers with wide eyes. Molly was briefly reminded of the refugees waiting for their ride to Utopia, but she forced the memories back. The poor people of Utopia, and her hand in what had happened to them, was the last thing she wanted to remember.

She could see that some of the Chakdaws were exchanging food, huddling together in tight groups. Those closest to the light appeared thin, their clothing loose and tattered. Molly drew in a sharp breath. Everyone in the room seemed so desperate and terrified. She turned to their Chakdaw, who looked back at her with sad eyes. "What happened here?" she asked quietly.

The Chakdaw just looked at her sadly. She frowned. The Doctor had said they had a language, hadn't he? Why weren't they saying anything?

Donna seemed to have remembered the same thing. "It's alright, you can tell us," she said gently. The normally brash woman crouched down to the Chakdaw's level, smiling encouragingly. "We can help you, I promise."

The Chakdaw shook his head, fear entering his eyes. Donna and Molly shared a worried look, both wondering why the creature was keeping silent. They were distracted by the sound of the Doctor's voice. "Donna's right." He was standing by the tunnel they'd just come from, where writing was etched onto the wall. Molly wasn't surprised to see English there, and Sherlock didn't react, but Donna's eyes widened, her brow crinkling with confusion. The Time Lord pointed to the scrawl by the tunnel, which read. "_To: Korris's hut._" "That's your name, isn't it? Korris?" The Chakdaw hesitated, then nodded. "So, Korris, you don't seem to be wanting to a lot of talking, so I'll do a bit of chatting instead. I've got a gob, me, so just stop me when I'm wrong."

He started towards Korris, hands clasped hehind his back, appearing like a professor about to launch into a lecture. "I've met Chakdaws before, and I know you've got your own language, so it's not that you can't speak, it's that you're choosing not to. So, best I can see, something's come in, taken over, and got you lot so scared you won't even say a peep when they're not looking. This," he gestured to the surrounding tunnel, "is probably left over from some old rituals and such that your captors don't even allow you to perform anymore. How am I doing so far?"

Korris sighed, nodding heavily. He shuffled slowly to a far wall where what appeared to be a crude map was etched into the wall. He gestured to one of the tunnels, which appeared to lead to outside. The Chakdaw looked from the map, to the travelers, and back. He held up a paw, gesturing to wait, then held up four fingers. He used his fingers to form the shape of a box, a rectangle like the TARDIS, then gestured to them. His meaning was clear – it wasn't safe to leave yet, but when it was, the Chakdaws would escort them back to the TARDIS.

The Doctor shook his head, that goofy, cocky smile of his in full force. "Yeah, dunno about that. This place was just starting to get interesting."

Molly nodded, grinning a bit. "Yeah, you know, we might like to stick around for a bit, see the sights."

Korris's eyes widened with terror, and he shook his head fiercely. The Doctor's expression grew serious. "Korris, we appreciate your help, really. But the four of us, this is what we do. Travel around, see stuff, meet people, you know. And your new bosses seem like very interesting people to meet."

Korris still seemed completely terrified at the idea. He shook his head again, but none of the travelers were deterred. Sherlock glared impatiently at the creature and said brusquely, "You're hiding us, which means whoever 's in control doesn't welcome strangers like us. You're not hiding from them, clearly, they've kept your huts up there and you've clearly been living in them. You're their servants, they'll obviously be expecting you to bring them any intruders. Just bring us to them, you won't be the ones in trouble, you'll have nothing to worry about, well, no more than the usual."

"Actually, just bring me and Sherlock," the Doctor corrected. "No need to get us all in trouble." Molly raised an eyebrow at that, but when the Time Lord threw her a quick, warning glance, she kept her mouth shut. Korris hesitated, fearful gaze darting from traveler to traveler, before sighing and dipping his head in acceptance.

As Korris gestured to two other Chakdaws, presumably telling them to lead the Doctor and Sherlock to their captors, the Time Lord pulled Molly aside. In a low voice he told her, "Try to get the Chakdaws to talk to you."

"You need information from them?" Molly asked.

The Time Lord shrugged. "Anything they've got would be nice, but right now they're terrified. Their captors have got them so scared they won't even speak. You're good with talking to people, helping them, and Donna seems to be too. Just try to get them to talk."

Molly nodded. "And you're taking Sherlock 'cause he'll just scare them more?" she predicted shrewdly.

The Doctor just grinned. The two Chakdaws approached the Time Lord, pulling at his coat as they started towards one of the tunnels. Giving Molly one last, reassuring glance, the Doctor let the Chakdaws lead him away, followed by Sherlock.

SCENEBREAK

The Doctor let the Chakdaws lead him through the icy, crystalline tunnels, Sherlock a few paces behind. Since they'd met Korris, he could tell something was very wrong on Paldoon. The last time he'd been there, the Chakdaws had all been so cheerful and welcoming. Of course, that had been a few decades ago by his count, but still, what could've gotten them so terrified that they wouldn't even speak? There were more than a few things he could name, but for now he'd wait and see.

The tunnel continued for some time, twisting and turning in the darkness, but the Chakdaws never wavered. Eventually, the tunnel arced upwards, steps carved into the walls to climb up. The Chakdaws reached the top first, scrambling up and turning to help the Doctor up, reaching down with furry paws. He popped his head above the tunnel, glancing around the area. They were in another of the huts, even less furnished than Korris's. The Chakdaws glanced around nervously, then covered the tunnel once more and led the travelers out of the hut.

Their guides began to lead them towards the largest, grandest building, farther behind the huts. The Doctor had figured that belonged to the big bosses – it hadn't been there when he'd last visited, though he'd been on a different part of the planet. Plus, Chakdaws didn't usually go for anything so big or flashy.

The interior proved to be as grand-looking as the outside. There was proper, wooden furniture inside, and wide hallways with decorative rugs laid out. Sherlock raised an eyebrow, gaze darting quickly around the room. The Doctor could tell he was deducing the room, drawing quick conclusions. He dropped back to walk beside the detective, asking in a low tone, "What have you got?" Anything he could see could help with theories.

"Building's new," Sherlock answered right away. "Probably completed around a year ago. The halls and doorways are built for large creatures, taller than wide, probably a good eight feet."

The Time Lord nodded distractedly. He'd already figured the building had to be new. Knowing the size was more helpful, though it still didn't tell him exactly what he was up against.

They were led into a vast throne room, with an ornate, lavish rug, and plush seat. On that seat a creature the Doctor hadn't seen in a long time. It was tall and thin, with a humanoid torso, but with four sets of arms, and a centipede-like lower body. It used all four arms as extra legs, resting on it's knuckles, as it peered at the newcomers. It had smooth gray scales that faded into a wrinkly gray hide, which covered the torso and arms. The head shape and eyes were humanoid, but with a lizard-like muzzle, and horns on the head and going down the back. It had golden eyes that narrowed dangerously as it noticed the Doctor and Sherlock.

In a ragged, hoarse voice, it barked, "Who are you?" The creature descended from the throne, skittering down the steps and coming to stand before the travelers. It rose up from the first two arms, gaining significant height over them, eyes glinting dangerously.

Sherlock looked more fascinated than scared, and the Doctor grinned eagerly at the creature. "Ah, a Werack!" The Werack blinked in surprise, letting out an untrusting hiss. The Time Lord just continued to beam at him, momentarily ignoring the impending danger in favor of excitement. "I haven't met any Weracks in ages! I went to your planet once, Dorann, might've gotten arrested, though I will say that it was hardly my fault."

The Werack lowered itself back onto it's knuckles, leaning in close to look at the Doctor. "Who are you, little man?" it rasped.

"Oh, just travelers, passing by," Sherlock said dismissively.

The Time Lord told the Werack, "I'm the Doctor, and that's Sherlock Holmes." He began to circle the Werack, arms tucked behind his back and leaning forward eagerly. "So, what's a Werack doing here then, eh? You lot have got your own planet, what're you doing here, storming in and starting a prison camp? This isn't your planet to take."

The Werack snorted. "What, you mean the Chakdaws?" He glanced dismissively at the two that had led the Doctor and Sherlock there. "They hardly put up a fight worth mentioning. Weak, pathetic, hardly good for anything beyond manual labor.

The Time Lord's brow furrowed. "Manual labor. Like what?"

The Werack smirked slightly. "This planet is rich in resources," he revealed with a cold chuckle. "Metals and minerals not found anywhere else, and these foolish creatures hardly put them to any use. They're only good for digging it from the ground."

The Time Lord tensed, suddenly understanding. He tilted his head up, looking calmly at the Werack, considering. "So that's what this is about," he said in a low voice. "I remember the state your economy was in last time I visited. So what, you bleed your planet dry and take someone else's?"

The Werack blinked at him, unconcerned. "Isn't that always the way? It's how your people work too, is it not? When you humans run out of room, you take it from lesser creatures. How is this any less acceptable?"

The Doctor smirked. "Yeah, see, here's the thing." He leaned in close to the Werack's face, expression smug. "I'm not human. And I'm really not a fan of people of the whole conquer and enslave routine." He turned serious as he added, "I'm going to stop you."

The Werack just chuckled. It rose up off all four sets of arms, growing taller and taller until it loomed far over the Time Lord's head. It's thin hands sported long, sharp claws that glinted ominously. as it growled, "And how exactly do you plan to stop us?";

* * *

Wow. Um. Right. I am so, *so* sorry about the wait. Wow, over two weeks? That's bloody insane. I'm really sorry. Wow.

I had some *major* writer's block for the last few weeks. I could not for the life of me translate my thoughts properly to paper. That' also why this chapter is less than quality. I'm sorry, I really hoped to make this a good chapter. But most of it was written at 1 AM any given night, or any other time I could force myself to write through my writer's block. Writing that's been forced through writer's block always turns out crappy, so again, I'm sorry for the quality.

I will try to pick up the slack with the posting.


	13. The Snows of Paldoon: Part Three

The Chakdaws seemed even more nervous after the Doctor and Sherlock left. A couple of sentries kept guard by the different tunnel exits, half covered in shadow, half bathed in the light cast from the lamps hung nearby. Korris stayed by Molly and Donna, gaze darting around anxiously. The other Chakdaws shuffled around nervously, none of them speaking, but all carrying an air of fear. They skittered around, the cave filled with a nervous tension.

Donna watched all this with a feeling of unease. She was sitting by the cave wall, her back leaning against the icy surface, while Molly paced around the cave. The other companion couldn't seem to sit still, though she didn't speak a word. Donna hadn't known the woman long, but there was a cool, calculating look in her eyes that she hadn't seen there before. The companion was looking at the Chakdaws with a lightly wrinkled brow, like she was working out a puzzle.

Donna wasn't sure what she had been expecting from her first trip with the Doctor - adventure, aliens, a boring history lecture - but it hadn't been this. These creatures, these aliens, they were clearly terrified of something. Donna couldn't pretend she wasn't the least bit scared, but what weighed more on her mind than the unknown danger was the behavior of her new traveling companions.

She'd expected Sherlock to be an unfeeling git from the moment she'd met him, so he offered no surprise there. The Doctor and Molly, however, were a little more worrying. It wasn't that they didn't care; they clearly did. But they looked at the Chakdaws, at their obvious terror and the state they were living in, and they hardly batted an eyelash. They grinned and joked and acted like they saw this every day. They were sympathetic, clearly, but not horrified, or even that worried. More intrigued, like they were facing a shiny, new puzzle. Well, that was more how the Doctor was. Molly was facing the whole thing with an almost military detachment, something hard in her eyes.

Donna could still remember the Racnoss, the waters of the Thames flooding in and washing away her children, and the Doctor just standing there, face like stone and eyes dark with a fury like she'd never seen. She'd seen in that moment that the goofy, cheerful alien was dangerous, deceptively so. That was why she'd chosen not to go with him in the first place. _"That place was flooding and burning and they were dying, and you were stood there like, I don't know, a stranger. And then you made it snow. I mean, you scare me to death!"_

After that, of course, he'd flown off in his magic box, and it didn't take long for her to regret her choice. The Doctor was terrifying, sure, but he'd also saved a lot of people from the Racnoss. Donna had wanted that, the adventure, and the chance to help people. Then she'd found him again, this time trying to figure out the conspiracy at Adipose industries, and this time he'd seemed different. He'd healed a bit from the loss of Rose, had softened a little. And true, she hadn't seen anything like his rage at HC Clements, but his lack of reaction to the terrified Chakdaws was still a little chilling. How much did you have to go through to be able to wave off that kind of pain?

Molly was a different story. Donna didn't know her as well as the Doctor, but she couldn't help but see the similarities between her and the Time Lord. She was joking and grinning like the Doctor, but under that, especially now, just walking around the cave, Donna could see something dark underneath, something that had her pacing with a tight expression rather than talking to the Chakdaws. She didn't know what it was, but it had her worried. Was that what the people who traveled with the Doctor became? Soldiers who focused on the battles rather than the victims? A small voice in Donna's mind whispered, _Is that what I'll be, if I travel with him long enough?_

She sighed, shaking her head. _No use worrying over it, Donna,_ she told herself. _Focus on what's happening now._ The temp turned to Korris, who was staring off towards the tunnel Sherlock and the Doctor had left from. She cleared her throat, making the little creature jump. "Sorry, didn't mean the scare you," she apologized with an encouraging smile. The Chakdaw just gave a little shrug, as if to say, "_Not a big deal._"

The temp looked out at the Chakdaws all huddled around in the cave. "How many of you are down here?" she asked curiously.

Korris held his paws, holding up two fingers, then eight. Donna let out a low whistle. "Twenty eight. Is that your whole tribe then?" The Chakdaw nodded. The temp could see a few young Chakdaws staying close to the legs of their elders, and a few Chakdaws with ragged fur and gray around their muzzles. All were thin, and all looked terrified. Korris himself looked to be pretty young, not quite as tall as the older Chakdaws and with softer, more vibrant fur.

"So you their leader then?" Donna asked. She remembered how he'd told the two Chakdaws to go with the Doctor and Sherlock, and how he'd seemed to be in charge about the humans who'd stumbled in.

Korris's expression softened for a moment, his lips twitching into a small smile. For a moment, he looked amused at the suggestion. He shook his head quickly. Pleased she'd gotten him to smile even a little, Donna asked, "So who is it then?"

The little Chakdaw grew somber. He shook his head, then drew a finger across his throat. Donna winced. "Right, so the new bosses killed him off." She leaned back, surveying the cave, all the Chakdaws standing together. Her voice softened as she continued, "Still, you all haven't done too bad for yourselves. Using the tunnels to stay safe, share food when no one's looking. You're all working together to keep each other safe. And us, strangers you don't even know. You brought us here instead of to your bosses. That was really brave." For a moment, the terror left Korris's eyes, his expression softening into a grateful smile.

"It's more than a lot of people might have done." Donna was surprised to hear Molly's voice. She turned to see the companion watching them, something unreadable in her expression. "People in that position, slaves to some big bad tyrant, some would turn on each other in ways you can't imagine. You guys have done alright for yourselves." With that, she turned back to her pacing, leaving Donna to mull over her words. She'd meant s \more than she'd said, that was for sure. Not for the first time, Donna wondered what is was that woman had seen and gone through to make her like this. Could traveling with the Doctor really change a person like that?

Had she been wrong to come after all?

SCENEBREAK

The Werack turned to glare at the two Chakdaws still cowering by the door. "Where are your people?" he snapped in sharp growl, causing the Chakdaws to flinch. "The mines are supposed to be open by now. Go now!" The Chakdaws skittered off as fast as their paws could carry them, slipping out the door they'd come through. It slammed shut with a loud _clunk_.

The Doctor wasn't going to admit it, especially not to the exceedingly smug detective currently beside him, but he was a little teensy bit worried. Their guides were gone, and that clunk was probably the door locking behind them. Not a problem for his screwdriver, but they'd have to get to the door first, and the Werack stood between them and it.

The alien's lips twitched into a smirk. He had them cornered and he knew it. "You should not have come here," he rumbled in a deep growl, still looming threateningly over the Time Lord.

As the Werack approached, claws extended, the Doctor held up his hands. "Listen, far as I can see it's just you overseeing this tribe, one against two, hardly seems fair," he babbled, trying to stall, to figure out how exactly to get him and Sherlock out of this one. "Not to mention all the Chakdaws. No need to do anything rash, to get anyone hurt, so how about we just work out your terms of surrender, eh?"

The Werack smirked. "Or, I could just kill you."

The Doctor sighed. That never worked. "Fair enough," he allowed.

The Werack bared his fangs, then lunged, claws extended. The Doctor leaped back, narrowly avoiding the creature's claws. As the Werack skittered after him, he ducked behind the throne, working to keep it between him and the creature. He had to duck as the creature swiped at him with claws extended. He clenched his teeth, feeling a brief rush of irritation. It would be lovely if people stopped trying to kill him all the time. Just for a little bit.

"Doctor!" The Time Lord hadn't noticed Sherlock slip off before the fight. He saw the detective standing by the door, which he'd gotten open, evidently by picking the lock. The Doctor shoved the throne towards the Werack, distracting him momentarily, before making a break for the door. The Werack's long, wiry arms scrambled to grab at the Doctor, but the Time Lord managed to reach the door, slipping past and slamming it behind him. He pulled out his sonic and quickly zapped the door, locking it again. Stuffing it back into his coat, he told Sherlock, "Run!"

SCENEBREAK

Suddenly, all the Chakdaws tensed, focused on the tunnel the travelers had come from. Donna and Molly both looked up, wondering whether the Doctor had returned yet. The ginger woman felt a stab of worry when only the two Chakdaws who had led them away scurrying back down the tunnel. There was no sign of either the Doctor or Sherlock.

Molly stiffened. "Where's the Doctor?" she asked sharply. The Chakdaws ignored her, signaling urgently to their tribemates. There was a murmur of panic in the crowd, all the Chakdaws sharing wide-eyed looks, before turning to stare at the two humans.

Donna felt a pang of worry. Something had clearly gone wrong with the Doctor and Sherlock's little meeting. "What is it? What's happened?"

The Chakdaws ignored her again. One by one, they all hurried out the tunnel, leaving only Korris and the humans. He glanced down the tunnel, then back at them, holding up a hand, palm facing them in a clear _stay here_ gesture.

Molly let out a snort. "Not a chance." Korris sighed, then held out his hand again, eyes pleading her to listen. She shook her head. "We're not sitting this one out," she told him firmly.

In a softer voice, Donna added, "Listen, the Doctor and Sherlock've clearly gotten themselves in trouble, the idiots. They need our help."

Korris sighed, hesitating for a moment, before finally beckoning them towards the tunnel with a paw. As the two women followed him, Donna cursed the Doctor internally. _Where the hell have you gone now, spaceman?_

SCENEBREAK

The Doctor and Sherlock hurried out of the icy palace, tearing across the camp to reach one of the huts. The two travelers slipped inside, hidden from sight, safe for the moment. They could hear the doors of the palace being thrown open, the howl of the enraged Werack as it skittered after them.

The detective quickly pulled aside the nest near the back of the cave, revealing another tunnel. The Doctor slipped into the tunnel, followed by Sherlock, who pulled the nest back over the hole to cover it up. They could hear the Werack moving around outside, barging into each hut to look for them. They waited with bated breath.

After a few minutes, the Werack gave a furious shriek, then his skittering faded, followed by the slam of the palace door. The Doctor let out a slow breath, a grin creeping onto his face. He laughed lightly, earning a raised eyebrow from Sherlock. "Well, that didn't go well," he chuckled. Now that he had all the answers he needed, he felt the thrill of adventure and danger again.

The detective let out a snort, lips curling into a little smirk. "Not particularly." Then he grew serious again. "So, these Weracks, who are they?"

The Time Lord shrugged. "Not anyone I know specifically, just another species I've run across," he explained. "Not especially powerful or intelligent, though they're a good bit stronger than humans."

"Clearly," Sherlock observed drily.

"A fairly organized species, I guess," the Doctor added, racking his brain to figure out what might help against them. "Only seems to be the one Werack here, but it's only one tribe, and a small one at that. I'm guessing he's the overseer."

Sherlock nodded with understanding. "He's the boss of this plantation, or what have you, but he answers to a higher boss?"

"That's what I'm thinking," the Doctor confirmed. "There was probably some big invasion force, but now they've settled into a system." His voice turned hard as he continued, "They only see the Chakdaws as slaves, so yeah, the plantation metaphor fits. You only need a few Weracks to keep the Chakdaws under control, and you get to spread your forces more thinly. There's probably some big boss sitting somewhere, all we've got right now is his underling. They've probably got one of them with every tribe on the planet."

The detective narrowed his eyes. "So what are we supposed to do?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Oh, you know, save the day, help the Chakdaws win their world back. The usual."

"And how is that our business?" Sherlock asked stiffly. The Doctor looked at him in surprise. "You're a Time Lord, this isn't your planet. Why do you care who lives here?"

The Time Lord felt a tug of frustration. Sherlock might be a companion now, but he was still insufferable sometimes. The Doctor couldn't keep the edge from his voice as he replied, "Oh, I don't know, maybe because I have a conscience?"

Sherlock snorted. "So you just go around looking for helpless people to save?"

"Don't you?" the Time Lord countered.

The detective rolled his eyes. "I'm hardly doing it out of mindless sympathy," he retorted. "You of all people, Doctor, should know there's no use caring about saving people. You walk through history, you see how it all begins and ends. In all your nine hundred years, you must have realized by now that you can't save anyone. They all die in the end, one way or another. All civilizations fall, all people die, all memories are forgotten. You can't save them, all you can do is prolong the inevitable. So what's the point of caring at all? One day, the Chakdaws will be gone, faded to dust. What will this pointless victory mean then?"

The Doctor stared evenly back at the detective. "It'll mean that someone cared," he said simply. "That a few children will live better lives, that one civilization will march on a little while longer."

Sherlock smirked. "Like I said, hardly worth anything."

"Oh, I don't know," the Doctor drawled. "You ask me, it's worth everything there is."

The detective just rolled his eyes, clearly not impressed. Undeterred, the Doctor grinned at the detective. "You think in grand terms too much, Sherlock. You have to look at the little things. A person's life may not mean a whole lot to you, but it matters a great deal to them, and that's important. Really, an ordinary life is the most important thing there is."

"It's not like those lives will ever be remembered in the end."

The Doctor shook his head. "It's not about being remembered, Sherlock. What's the good of being remembered when you're gone? When you're dead, you're dead. No, it's about living your life while you have it. That's what I work to save. And that's what you do too." The detective snorted, but the Doctor shook his head. "No, no, don't give me that 'I only solve crimes out of boredom' bollocks. If that were true, you'd've been a criminal, not a detective. Less people to deal with that day, less criticism, and much more dangerous and challenging. A man who didn't care at all, that's the path he'd take, don't you think?"

Sherlock just glared at him. "Enough. Let's just get back to the cave." As he pushed past the Doctor, the Time Lord couldn't help but count the conversation as a victory.

Hopefully, Sherlock had heard what he'd been saying.

* * *

Yay, another update. Sorry for the wait, again, but this time it's not nearly as bad.

Introducing: the POV of Donna Noble! Yeah, since she's now one of the main companions, I figured she more than deserved her own POV. Sherlock, however, is not getting a POV any time soon for two reasons. A) He's only a temporary companion until the whole Moriarty mess is taken care of, and B) it's hard enough writing him from other character's POV's, there is no way I'm writing straight from his complicated, brilliant, wordy head.

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure where the whole meaning-of-life conversation between Sherlock and the Doctor came from. It wasn't even going to be there, but then I realized I really didn't have Sherlock doing much, and I tried to think of what to have him say, and I came up with a tough question, and I had to figure out how the Doctor would answer, and it kinda grew from there. So yeah, enjoy the philosophizing. If that's a word.


	14. The Snows of Paldoon: Part Four

Donna and Molly followed the Chakdaws into the tunnels, Korris padding nervously by their side. No one spoke. The only sound was the quiet pattering of the Chakdaws' pawsteps on the icy ground. Korris stayed beside Donna, looking up at her every so often with wide, anxious eyes. She gave him a reassuring smile each time, even if she didn't feel particularly good about what they were doing.

She had no idea where the Chakdaws were leading them. The Doctor and Sherlock were gone, and if Molly had any idea what was going on, she didn't say.

The other companion followed the aliens with an unreadable expression, gaze sharply scanning the Chakdaws. Donna wondered what was going through the girl's head. Was she trying to figure out what was controlling the Chakdaws? Where they were going? Where the Doctor was? Did she have any guesses, or was she as clueless as Donna. Whatever the case was, she clearly wasn't in a chatty mood. Donna gave a slight, irritated huff, crossing her arms over her chest. _If she has any clue what's going on here, she better damn well say so,_ the temp grumbled internally. _None of that not-explaining-things-'til-the-last-minute crap the Doctor loves to pull._

They were walking in the tunnels for a few minutes before Chakdaws started breaking off from the group one by one, waddling off into small, offshoot tunnels. The group grew smaller and smaller, until it was only Korris left. He led them into the tunnel that led back up into his hut. Once they were all up, he poked his head nervously outside the hut, checking for something, before waving the humans over, leading them outside.

Out in the open, Chakdaws were scurrying out of their huts, swarming together and heading towards something Donna couldn't see. Korris quickly led them into the thick of the crowd, though since all the Chakdaws were hip-height at best, they weren't very well hidden. They let themselves be led around the edge of the camp by the crowd, until they were able to see their destination. It looked like some sort of den or cave opening in the ground, much larger than any of the tunnel openings any of the travelers had seen so far. The Chakdaws began scurrying down into the tunnel, the shade of the cave mouth swallowing them up. Donna and Molly shared an uneasy glance, but allowed the aliens to lead them down into the icy tunnel.

**SCENEBREAK**

The moment the Doctor and Sherlock returned to the underground cavern, the Time Lord knew no one had been there for several minutes. He let out a slight growl of frustration, starting round the cavern with a hand running distractedly through his head. "Right. So much for staying here. Why can't anyone just stay where I tell them too?" he asked no one in particular.

Sherlock was crouching by the tunnel they'd just come from, a thoughtful crinkle in his brow. Without warning, he bounced up to his feet. "Did you see a mine coming in?" he asked out of the blue.

The Doctor had forgotten the Werack's words to the Chakdaws, ordering them to the mines. "No, but it's gotta be close." He pulled out his sonic screwdriver, waving it around the walls experimentally.

The detective let out a snort. "Oh, don't bother with that." The Doctor back at him in surprise. "The mines were made on the Werack's orders. There's no way the Chakdaws built them to connect to any of these tunnels, not when these are supposed to be hidden from the Weracks. Too likely to be discovered, and those cozy little furballs did not look like risk takers."

The Time Lord ignored the detective's condescending tone and considered his point. "You're right. No, they'd try to keep it as far from here as they could, but it'd have to be close, too, in walking distance of the camp."

"The Werack will be there already," Sherlock pointed out. "He'll want to keep an eye on them. His intimidation is his power over them, so he'll always want to make his presence known, make it seem like he's always watching them. He'll also be watching out for us, of course."

The Doctor nodded. "That give us time to come up with a plan."

"What plan?" Sherlock asked dubiously.

"Dunno." He hopped to his feet, turning to face a less-than-amused detective. "Hence the coming-up-with-it part." The Time Lord flashed a grin, then turned to the tunnel, taking off at the familiar run. "Allons-y!"

**SCENEBREAK**

They were led far down into the darkness, down and down a winding tunnel, until they were far under the planet's surface. There were lanterns hanging sparsely along the walls, offering dim, poor lighting.

Once Donna's eyes adjusted to the light, she grew even more curious. The tunnels were much, much wider than the ones from before, and more crudely cut, with odd edges and shapes poking out from the walls. Chakdaws were lined up against the walls, digging into the hard ice with their bare claws. The temp hadn't noticed before the long, tough claws the Chakdaws had, which seemed to be retractable like a cat's. The creatures tore into the ice, digging, for what she wasn't certain.

The companions were led quickly off into a side tunnel, stashed away in the dark by a fearful Korris. He held up a hand in a clear _stay here_ gesture, then scurried off back to the main tunnel. Donna watched him go with no short amount of irritation. She was getting sick of being told to stay behind.

The temp was about to turn to Molly and suggest going back out and figuring out what was going on when she heard an angry growl. "You're all late!" There was a strange skittering noise, like a really large insect, which only grew louder. Curious, Donna edged closer to the entrance to the main tunnel, silently followed by Molly. She dared to poke her head around the wall, trying not to be seen, but needing to see what was going on.

She drew in a sharp breath. A weird new creature was in the mines, something that looked like the cross between a centipede, a centaur, and a dragon. It was large, intimidating, and was looming over the trembling Chakdaws. Molly looked out below her, eyes narrowing at the sight of the creature.

The new alien watched the progress of the digging Chakdaws, pacing further down the cave, looming over the terrified creatures. An ugly snarl twisted its features. "Progress has been poor here," it growled, its eyes glinting ominously. "Pick up the pace, or there'll be consequences. I want at least three dozen from each of you by day's end, or else."

_Three dozen what?_ Donna wondered. She craned her neck to get a better view. The Chakdaws were still hacking away at the ice, but eventually, some would pull what looked like precious stones and minerals away from the ice, setting them in hollow little ditches behind them. She felt a rush of anger as she understood. The Chakdaws were being enslaved and terrified, all for the sake of greed and some useless stones.

She felt Molly tense beside her. No doubt the other companion had come to the same conclusion. The only problem was, what could they do about it? The weird insect-thing was too big for them to fight alone, and the Chakdaws clearly weren't going to be much help, they were too scared. There weren't a lot of options.

Donna groaned internally. _Where the hell are you, Spaceman?_

**SCENEBREAK**

Since the Werack was in the mines, the Doctor and Sherlock were free to move freely about the camp. They made their way out of the tunnels, returning to the now-empty ice palace.

The Doctor took out his sonic, scanning as he picked a hallway at random and started walking. "What exactly are we looking for?" Sherlock asked.

Still scanning, the Doctor replied, "The Chakdaws are still living in huts and carving ice with their claws, but the Weracks, they've got spaceships, weapons, advanced technology. And that means..."

"Communication," Sherlock finished, eyes lighting up with understanding. "They've spread their troops out thin, one man to a camp, they have to be communicating closely to keep control over the Chakdaws."

"And to keep tabs on their shipments," the Time Lord added. "It's all got to be going back to the home planet. So, cut off their communications, the Werack's stranded."

"Doesn't help with the Werack already here," Sherlock pointed out.

"Yeah, but it stops it from bringing reinforcements in." The Time Lord paused, the sonic picking up signs of the tech he was looking for. He turned down another hallway, eventually reaching a room where an advanced computer was set up. The Doctor grinned, twirling his sonic screwdriver expertly in his hand. "Right, let's get this done, then we can go get Molly and Donna out of there. They must be in the mines, and they don't know the Werack's coming."

Sherlock chuckled. "Molly can take care of herself," he assured the Doctor. The Time Lord looked at him curiously. Neither Molly or Sherlock had said much about the Year That Never Was, and the Doctor hadn't pushed, no matter how much he'd wondered. He hadn't exactly had the best year either, being kept as a hobbled old man and the Master's prisoner, and he knew Molly's year had to have been much worse. If she didn't want to talk about it, he could respect that. Besides, she was Molly Hooper, the Woman Who Walked the Earth. She'd pull through.

He gave a rueful half-grin. "Still, not exactly the first trip I wanted for Donna."

The detective snorted. "Oh, she'll be fine, as long as she can stop blustering about long enough to stay hidden." The Doctor rolled his eyes. Sherlock and Donna weren't going to get along any time soon, he could see.

But as long as they were all safe on the TARDIS, he'd be happy to let the pair of them bicker their hearts out to the end of time.

**SCENEBREAK**

Donna and Molly stayed in the side tunnel, watching as the Chakdaws worked. The overseer swept up and down the tunnels, gone for minutes at a time. The Chakdaws were pretty far spaced out, moving along the walls as they came up empty of gems.

Time passed, the companion wasn't sure how much. Could've been minutes, could've been hours. It wasn't like watching Chakdaws dig through ice over and over was the most captivating sight. She could've laughed. She'd left the cavern so she wasn't just sitting around doing nothing while the Doctor was in danger, and here she was, sitting around doing nothing. When she'd signed onto the TARDIS, she hadn't expected this much sitting and waiting. It made her feel restless, useless. The Doctor and Sherlock could be in serious danger, and she was sitting on the sideline, though considering insect boy was in the same tunnels, maybe she should've been more worried about herself.

Without warning, part of the tunnel collapsed, snow raining down into the tunnel, blocking it off. Donna froze, clasping a hand over her mouth to keep from crying; there were at least three Chakdaws down that tunnel. The remaining Chakdaws looked up in alarm, but none moved to help their trapped friends. The overseer skittered down from higher up in the tunnels, letting out a sharp hiss. It glared around at the remaining Chakdaws, eyes flashing with fury. "Idiots!" it snarled, causing the Chakdaws to shrink back in fear. It swatted a Chakdaw to the side, sending it skidding across the ground, shoulder sliced by the creature's claws. "I have no need for workers who can't build solid walls." It turned and began to skitter away, snapping, "Keep working!" over its shoulder.

Donna waited until the creature's skittering faded away to nothing, then darted out of cover, racing to the collapsed snow. Molly followed quickly, helping Donna scoop the snow out of the way, digging through the pile. The Chakdaws watched them nervously, still working. Donna turned and looked imploringly at them over her shoulder. "Come on, don't just sit there, help us!" she hissed desperately. They all shared uneasy glances, but none moved. Only Korris came forward, silently joining them in their digging.

They managed to pull all three Chakdaws out of harm's way, bringing them into the side passage Molly and Donna were hiding behind. They were winded, but alive. As Molly checked on them and made sure they were tucked away and safe, Donna turned to Korris. "So, that happen a lot here then?" she asked with an uncomfortable chuckle, trying to lighten the mood. The Chakdaw nodded, sadness glinting in his eyes. He glanced over to where the three victims were being checked over by Molly, expression filled with guilt.

Molly looked up at the remaining Chakdaws, expression hard. "You just sat there," she said in a low voice. "They could've died, and you just watched and did _nothing_." Donna looked back at her in surprise. She'd expected the companion to be the voice of reason and understanding, but there was a dark anger in Molly's expression, rage in her tensed posture and clenched fists.

Donna would've told her to back off, but she was angry too. That insect thing was intimidating, true, but how could anyone just sit back and watch while people were dying? _Nothing_ excused that. "Listen, I don't know what the hell that thing is out there, but there's gotta be at least twenty of you. You can beat him together!"

The Chakdaws shrunk back, terror flashing in their eyes, shaking their heads. Donna felt a rush of frustration. "Anything's better than sitting back and watching this happen!" she snapped.

The aliens shuffled back, looking down at the ground with fearful, haunted expressions. Donna's anger softened into pity. What could that insect thing have done to make them so afraid? She glanced back at Molly, trying to gauge her opinion, but the former pathologist was frozen, glare fixed at the ground, jaw clenching and unclenching, completely unfocused. Donna felt fear fluttering in her stomach. Looked like she was on her own for now.

As she looked back at the collapsed tunnel, an idea came to her. "Korris," she said slowly, "would you know how to make a cave-in like that happen?" The Chakdaw stared at her with wide eyes, comprehension and horror growing in his eyes. The other Chakdaws shuffled back, staring at her in fear. Clearly, they weren't a fan of her plan.

Donna looked at them imploringly. She pushed her anger back, forcing her voice to be soft. Clearly, these aliens had been through hell. "Listen, the Doctor and us, we're here to help, we really are. We can get rid of bug boy out there, but we need your help. You wanna be saved? You have to help save yourselves." She offered a reassuring grin as she told them, "This can be over, forever. Korris, you helped us save these guys, nothing happened, no one got in trouble. There's only one of them, you can take him on your own, you really can."

The Chakdaws shared quick glances, silently communicating. Donna waited with bated breath. These aliens had literally been terrified into silence. Would they really be willing to move past that?

Finally, Korris gave a small nod, giving a stronger nod a few moments later. One by one, the rest of the Chakdaws followed suit. The companion let out a breath, a grin spreading across her face. "Right. Let's get started, then."

"We're bringing this whole mine down."

**SCENEBREAK**

All forms of communications outside the camp were now down. It had taken a bit, but the Doctor had hacked in and shut down everything, mucking it all up so badly there was no way it could be set up again. Satisfied, he and Sherlock headed out of the ice palace. "Right, time to find Donna and Molly," the Doctor remarked as they headed out into the camp.

It didn't take long to find the mines, not with the clear trail of Chakdaw pawprints leading straight to it. They stared down at the mouth of the tunnel for a few moments. Sherlock raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "It's almost certain we're about to walk into a trap," he pointed out drily.

"What, you got a better idea?" the Doctor asked ruefully. He looked down at the cave, eyebrows raised. "Ah well, here goes nothing." They started down into the darkness.

For a while, they saw nothing. It took a few minutes before they came upon the first of the Chakdaws. The creatures stared at them in horror, gesturing for them to go back, to run, but it was too late. Skittering echoed from further down the passage, and a familiar centipede-like alien appeared out of the shadows. It grinned, flashing sharpened teeth. "How perfect. I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to come down here on your own. Do you make a habit of walking into deathtraps?"

The Doctor shrugged, keeping it non-chalant. "Only on Tuesdays," he quipped.

Predictably, the Werack lunged at them again. The Doctor jumped back, but Sherlock ducked under the Werack's swipe, coming around behind the creature. It ignored him, more focused on the Doctor, its challenger.

The Doctor turned and started off doing what he was best at – running.

**SCENEBREAK**

Donna and Molly heard what was going on. They hurried further up the cave, staying close to the wall and out of sight. They saw the overseer going after the Doctor, but Sherlock was further back, closer to them. "Sherlock!" Molly hissed. The detective turned, coming over once he saw them.

As he got closer, Donna grumbled, "Where the hell have you two been?"

"Actually doing something useful," the detective retorted, "Tell me, how's sitting in a tunnel been going?"

"Oi, listen you -"

Before Donna could launch into a proper fight, Molly interrupted, telling Sherlock in a serious tone, "Listen, we have a plan. We're gonna blow the whole tunnel system, but we need to get everyone out of here, including the overseer. Think you can lure him outside?"

"Why?" Sherlock asked bluntly. "Wouldn't you want him inside when it collapses?"

Molly tensed, but after a moment she shook her head. "No," she said reluctantly. "We have to give it a chance."

Sherlock still looked unconvinced, but Molly gave him a firm glare, and finally he nodded. "We'll get him outside." He took off down the tunnels, back after the insect thing.

Donna turned to Molly, who was staring off with that unfocused gaze again. "Hey, you alright?" she asked in a gentle tone.

The companion gave a shaky nod. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," she said dismissively. "I just... it just reminds me of something, that's all." She turned away from Donna, shoulders squared and chin lifted, an almost military stance. "Come on, we need to get the Chakdaws all out of here."

Donna watched her go for a few moments, not sure whether to feel worried or just sympathetic. Molly had clearly gone through something like this before, but it had to have been more than just a quick Doctor adventure, it had far too much impact on her.

As she followed the other companion, Donna resolved to find out what had happened.

**SCENEBREAK**

As the Doctor raced through the winding tunnels, trying to dodge the Werack, he heard a familiar voice. "Doctor!" He saw Sherlock running towards him from a side tunnel, calling out, "Doctor, we need to lead the Werack outside!"

The Time Lord didn't ask why. Clearly, there was some sort of plan in place, and there wasn't time to talk about it. As Sherlock joined him, he turned to face the Werack, who was several paces behind, a taunting grin on his face. "Oi! Lizard-face! Might want to catch me soon, wouldn't want your slaves to see you fail to catch one miserable little bi-pedal." As the Werack howled with rage, he bolted, turning back onto a passage that would lead to the main tunnel.

They finally made it outside the tunnels, out into the sharp, bright sunlight. They split off as the Werack came roaring out of the tunnel, ready to dodge and confuse the creature together, but there was no need. A flood of Chakdaws came rushing out of the tunnels, pushing past the Werack, to its fury. "Where are you going?!" it roared, glaring down at the creatures. "Get back in there!" Molly and Donna rushed out as well, past the distracted Werack, coming to the Doctor and Sherlock's side.

Without wanrning, there was a deep rumbling, and the snow around the entrance fell in. It looked like the ground itself had caved it, leaving a crater-like ditch. The Doctor watched with a growing grin as he understood. "Oh, that's brilliant," he remarked. They'd collapsed the mines, the source of the Werack's greed.

The Werack let out a shriek of fury. "NO!" It raced towards the fallen mine, shoveling snow aside, but the entrance was gone. With a roar, it whirled back around, rising out off all four arms to loom over the Chakdaws. "WHO DID THIS?!" it screeched.

The Chakdaws flinched back instinctively, but Donna stepped up beside them, followed by the rest of the travelers. "We did," she said firmly, even as the creature loomed over her, even as her own heart pounded with fear. "We all did. They're not sitting back and letting you walk all over them anymore, and we're helping."

The Werack screeched furiously, shooting forward to strike Donna, but before he could, Korris raced towards him, grabbing onto one of his centipede-like legs. The Werack whirled to face him with a shriek, but before he could retaliate, the other Chakdaws followed suit, swarming over the Werack, forcing it flat against the ground, thrashing and struggling. The creature let out a howl, but it was defeated, and it knew. "You'll pay for this," it hissed, glaring straight at the Doctor.

"Actually, we won't," the Time Lord corrected him cheerfully. "See, we cut off your communications. No one to call for help to. You're on your own."

The Werack hissed, but at last stopped struggling, defeated. The Chakdaws began dragging him off towards the ice palace. The Doctor wondered with amusement at the irony; the creature was to be imprisoned in the palace he'd commissioned.

Korris, and the few Chakdaws who'd stayed, turned back to the travelers. Korris swallowed, then, in a low, scratchy voice, he whispered, "Thank you."

The Doctor beamed. "See? I knew you could do it!" He looked after where the Werack had been taken. "Well, looks like you have your camp back. What'll you do now?"

Korris lifted his chin, suddenly looking stronger than the Doctor had seen him before. "Few us will travel," he said haltingly, "spread word... free camps... take planet. All free." He reached out, putting a furry paw on the Time Lord's hand. "You go... we're grateful, always owe. We fight now. You go."

The Time Lord knew he was right. The Chakdaws could take their own planet back, and it was time to get back to the TARDIS. He gave the Chakdaw a warm smile. "Take care of yourself there, Korris."

The Chakdaw nodded, then turned to Donna, expression growing somber. "Thank you Donna... your words, made strong, made brave. You're right. Had to save selves. Thank you."

Donna's expression faltered, and for a moment she looked uncertain, overwhelmed by such thanks. "No problem," she finally managed.

As the travelers turned away, the Doctor put an arm around each of the companions on either side of him, grinning. It may not have been the first trip he'd wanted for Donna, but all in all, it hadn't turned out that badly.

* * *

"All in all, it hadn't turned out that badly." Well, maybe from your point of view, Doctor, but from mine this whole bloody episode is nowhere near as good as I wanted it to be. I'm once again writing through block, and once again I've taken way too long to post this chapter. I am so, so sorry for the crappy quality and lateness, something I've been saying too much lately. Hopefully things will get better with the next episode. Which one will that be? I don't know yet. Sorry. So sorry. *hides behind laptop*

On another note, I started another story, a SuperWho story with Rose Tyler after Doomsday. If you're interested, check it out on my page.


	15. Ol' Broomtail: Part One

"You want to pick the next trip? _You_? Seriously?"

It had been a month since that first trip with Donna. Since then, the former temp had melded nicely into their little group on the TARDIS. She was always chastising the Doctor, never taking any of his crap, but the two were undoubtably close. Molly had been a bit jealous at first, but she and the Doctor were still close as ever, and their dynamic hadn't changed. It was more like the dynamic had been extended to include Donna. If she was the Doctor's little sister, an analogy she'd made many times before, then Donna was the big sister, the one who pushed him and challenged him but in the end was one of his closest friends.

She supposed that metaphor continued to herself. As she'd gotten to know the fiery-tempered companion, Molly had been surprised to realize how glad she was to have Donna as a friend. Donna was loud and brash and stubborn, but she was also incredibly warm. The trip to Paldoon had shown Molly just how caring and empathetic Donna could really be. The Doctor was her best friend, and he'd been the first person to really care about her, but Donna was undoubtably better at reading people. She could tell when something was wrong, and she was far more tactful about it than the Time Lord. Sometimes it was good to be able to talk to someone, someone who knew the right things to say.

But she still held back. Donna was trying to find out more about what she'd been referring to on Paldoon, what that situation had reminded her of. It wasn't like the Year That Never Was was some kind of big secret or anything. For whatever reason, though, she didn't want to talk to Donna about it. It just wasn't something she particularly wanted to think about again.

Of course, just because she'd become a proper part of the group didn't mean she wasn't bickering with Sherlock any less.

"Seems fair enough to me," the detective replied with a smirk. "I'm the only one so far who hasn't made a request."

They were all hanging out in the console room, having had a lazy morning with an elaborate breakfast coordinated by Donna and the Doctor, and some lazing about in the library for Molly while the others milled around the TARDIS. Donna seemed to really like the garden room, while Sherlock seemed to have come to some sort of agreement with the TARDIS that allowed him to access some of her computers and go through some of her files. The Doctor had been who knows where, probably fiddling the the TARDIS engine or something.

Molly loved the action and adventure when they landed, but still, lazy days like that on the TARDIS were nice. The seclusion of the library was comforting, with her spot curled in the corner of the couch, facing the fireplace, snuggled into the cushions, a good book in hand. No matter how much trouble she was having getting used to normal life after the Year, the library always made her feel at peace.

Now, however, it was time for another trip, and apparently even that was something Donna and Sherlock could bicker about.

Donna whirled to face the Doctor, shooting an accusing glare in his direction. "You let _him_," she jabbed a finger in Sherlock's direction, "drive the bloody TARDIS?!"

The Doctor's eyes widened with fear. He threw his hand up defensively, backing up a few paces. "He'd not gonna drive -" he started, but Sherlock cut him off.

"Really, I don't see why you're so surprised," the detective said coolly. "After all, he's let _you_ pick our destination before. He could hardly make a worse choice than that."

Donna narrowed her eyes. "What do you even want to pick a trip for anyway? You're not exactly one to be picky about the scenery."

Sherlock just smirked. "I hardly expect you to understand that there's more than pretty sights to be seen out there."

Molly threw the Doctor a look that was half exasperated, half amused. They'd had a month of this. A month of Donna Noble and Sherlock Holmes in the same TARDIS, and those two seemed to use _any_ excuse to quarrel. Sherlock liked to point out Donna's inferior intelligence to his own and her general loud and blustering behavior, while Donna called him out for being an arrogant, snobbish asshat... which, if Molly was being honest, wasn't an untrue description.

Donna rolled her eyes, letting out a huff. "I suppose it doesn't matter what you pick, you'll just piss people off and get us all in trouble no matter where we go."

"Like you're all charm and grace," the detective returned sarcastically.

"All right," the Doctor interrupted loudly, clapping his hands together loudly once. "My TARDIS, my rules, and I say Sherlock gets to pick." Molly held back a chuckle at the Doctor having to break up the fight in an almost mother-like fashion, breaking up squabbling kids. "Sherlock, where is it you wanted to go, so we can actually get there before the universe ends."

Donna was still fuming, but the detective turned to face the Doctor, still smirking somewhat. "We've been visiting the past quite a lot," he explained, "or else alien planets in the present. We haven't been to the future since the Master." Molly tensed, and Donna looked at her curiously. "I want to visit somewhere in the future where I can talk to someone about the technology of the time and the social advancements."

The Doctor nodded, looking thoughtful. "The future, hmm? Can do!" In a sudden burst of energy, he started up the TARDIS flight sequence, dashing around the console to reach everything. Molly let him do it himself this time, content to sit back and watch the Time Lord, and watch the detective and former temp continue to glower at each other. She still felt a bit groggy from her cozy morning in the library; hopefully a trip off the TARDIS would wake her up.

The TARDIS began the familiar shaking and shuddering as she was thrown into flight. By now, all her passengers knew how to keep their balance through the bumpy flight, so the ship finished her flight without any incident. As the shuddering came to a halt, the Doctor dashed over to the door, throwing it open and popping his head outside. Molly stifled a laugh. The Time Lord sure seemed hyper today.

After a few moments, he came back in. "Right, hold on." He bounced back to the console, tweaking a few controls. The TARDIS shuddered for a brief second, then still. He hurried back to the door, poked his head out again, then grinned. He looked back at them. "Right where I was aiming, some five hundred years in the future," he said proudly. "Let's go then."

Sherlock was the first to the door, followed quickly by Donna and Molly. When the former pathologist stepped out of the blue box, she felt the usual thrill of excitement and awe, even two years after the adventures had begun.

They were in some sort of hallway, the TARDIS blocking most of the passageway. They seemed to be somewhere high-tech, judging by all the wires and pipes running over their heads, and how the whole hallway was metal. It all seemed somewhat dull and rusty, however.

Donna looked around with interest. "Not very clean in here, is it?" she remarked. "Where are we then?"

Sherlock smirked. "We're on a spaceship," he informed her smugly. "Obviously."

The former temp rolled her eyes. "Of course, why did I even bother asking?" she asked no one in particular, throwing her arms up in exasperation. "Shoulda known you'd take the first chance to show off. How d'ya know this isn't just what houses look like in the future, hmm?"

Molly rolled her eyes. It hasn't been a minute and they were arguing again. She tuned out as Sherlock launched into his explanation, instead turning to the Doctor with a raised eyebrow. "Another spaceship?" she inquired. "Been a bit since we've been on one of them."

The Doctor chuckled. "The last one didn't really go that well for us, did it?"

"Didn't we nearly fall into a sun?" she asked with a laugh.

He laughed. "Yeah, and the time before that I nearly got pulled into a black hole by the devil." Molly blinked in surprise at that, but didn't bother asking. None of the Doctor's stories really fazed her anymore.

Without warning, Molly heard the click of a gun, and a low voice ordering, "Hands up."

The companion stiffened. Her hand twitched automatically to her hip, where she'd kept her gun during the Year, but she hadn't had it there since the Year's end. Slowly, she and the others turned to face the newcomer.

A woman with short, choppy blonde hair with dark and pale, silvery streaks in it was evenly pointing a gun at them. Her eyes, one hazel, one a silvery-blue, were cold, her gun hand dangerously still. She wore a white blouse, with a black vest, a brown, open leather vest over that, brown leather fingerless gloves, and black pants with a brown belt slung lazily across her hips.

In a clipped, American accent, she asked them, "Now, you all want to tell me what the hell you're all doing on my ship?"

Instead of answering her, Donna turned to glare at the Doctor. "You and your bloody luck," she said with exasperation, "of course we start the day with guns in our face."

Molly didn't hear the Doctor's indignant reply. She was too focused on the gun being pointed at them. Without meaning to, she found herself assessing the situation. The woman wasn't an amateur - she was used to holding a gun. So her threat wasn't empty by any means. Disarming techniques flashed through her mind, but she forced herself to stay stock-still.

The Doctor slowly lowered one of the hands over his head, offering it to the woman. "Hello, I'm the Doctor!" he introduced himself cheerfully. She just glared at him until his grin wavered and he lowered his hand. He gestured to his companions. "Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes, and Donna Noble."

The woman just rolled her eyes. "Lovely. Nice to meet you all," she remarked sarcastically. "Now, if you could get back to my question and tell me what the _shee-niou guay_ you're doing on my ship?"

Molly blinked in surprise, momentarily distracted from the danger. Why hadn't her words translated into English? The Doctor didn't look surprised, however. Instead, he slowly went to pull something from coat. The woman's gun hand tensed, but he just pulled out his psychic paper, flipping it open for her to see. "We're passengers. See?" He waved it a little for emphasis. "Traveling missionaries, just, you know, spreading the good word around. Sign said you were looking for passengers, so we just popped on in. Got a bit lost looking for the passenger dorms though."

The woman glared at him suspiciously. "What, you just waltzed right in?" she asked dubiously.

The Time Lord shrugged, grinning shamelessly. "Yeah, bit of a bad habit of mine, just walking in anywhere," he admitted cheerfully. "I'm hopeless, honestly. 'Incorrigible''s the word they use, at the... er, abbey."

The woman narrowed her eyes, but in the end she seemed to decide he was harmless. She relaxed, slowly lowering the gun. "Right, just knock next time, alright?" she grumbled as she put her gun back in her holster.

"Will do," Molly said evenly, still staring warily at the gun.

The woman followed her gaze. "Ah, right. Sorry 'bout this," she gestured to the gun, "You can't be too careful in these parts. Thieves and all that." She stuck out a hand, which Molly warily shook. "Tammy Jones, first mate." She shook the other travelers hands. "Come on, lemme introduce you to the rest of the crew." Her eyes flicked to the TARDIS behind them. "That yours?"

The Doctor grinned, looking proudly back at the blue box. "Yep! It's an, er, memento of the abbey. Old, pretty much worthless, just a sentimental keepsake."

Tammy raised an eyebrow skeptically, but after a moment she shrugged. "I'll get the twins to lug it to the cargo bay later. Just leave it for now. Come on." She started off down the hall.

Before he could follow Tammy, Donna grabbed the Doctor's arm, stopping him. She hissed under her breath, "Traveling missionaries? Really, Doctor?"

He shrugged. "What? It was the best I could think of. People in these times really don't take well to random strangers." The Time Lord held out an arm, smirking. "Shall we?"

She just rolled her eyes. "You take us to the nicest places," she said sarcastically, but she was grinning when she took his arm. Molly took the other, and they set off after Tammy, Sherlock hanging back, as per usual.

As they walked, Tammy looked back at them with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. "I have to say," she commented casually, "ain't many preachers out this far. You looking to spread the word of your Lord on high to beggars and thugs?" There was some sort of accent in her voice - a drawl, Molly realized, sort of Western.

The Doctor shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Oh, you know, just whoever needs it."

Molly nodded as seriously as she could manage. "We're just simple messengers of the Lord," she deadpanned. "It's a very isolated life, not a lot of outside interaction. A lot of sitting." The Doctor smirked, and it took all of Molly's self-control not to laugh.

Tammy snorted. "Yeah, well, if you're looking to discourage sin and greed, you ain't gonna find many takers out here, sorry to say. Not exactly God's country."

"Why not?" Donna asked curiously.

The first mate looked back at her with a raised eyebrow. "You really need to ask?" she asked incredulously.

"Like I said, not a lot of outside interaction," Molly covered for her hastily. "We basically live like hermits. Haven't heard a peep from the outside world in years."

The woman gave a harsh laugh. "That's some rock you've been living under if you haven't heard of the war." They looked at her eagerly so, with a shrug, she continued, "There was a civil war, government tried to pull all the planets under their rule, and they won. Outer planets weren't too happy with it, so those who aren't the government's favorite people tend to flock there. They ain't always the friendliest people, 'specially those trying to preach about someone telling them what to do."

They finally reached a door further down the hallway. Tammy stopped in front of it, giving a slight grin. "This here's the cargo bay." As she started to open the door, she announced with fake grandeur, "Ladies and gentlemen, behind this door, the crew of _Ol' Broomtail_."

* * *

Yeah. I wasn't gonna go here. But I needed another episode between here and the Planet of the Ood, and how could I resist?

For those of you unaware of what I'm currently babbling about, this chapter is set in the universe of Firefly, the lovely, and sadly canceled, sci-fi. I made it somewhat subtle and vague as to whether it was in the Firefly 'verse, so you can ignore it if you want. This will be set a couple years after the Miranda thing.

And yes, I felt it was necessary to throw another episode in before the Planet of the Ood. Why? To say too much would be to spoil, but I will say that it has to do with building certain character relationships do they can be where they need to be for a later episode.

And on another note, look, a times update again, yay! I'll try to keep that up now. And now you all get to enjoy another original episode. Hopefully it'll turn out better than the last one.


	16. Ol' Broomtail: Part Two

Tammy led them into a large, spacious room, with a grated floor and smooth metal walls. A few people were crowded around a group of boxes, two men lugging them into a corner. A blond woman was telling them, "We'll have to tie these down. Don't need these goin' off in the middle of space."

They all looked up as Tammy approached, the travelers in tow. "Tess, we've got passengers," the first mate informed the blond woman. She turned back to the travelers. "This is Captain Tess Jones, owner of _Ol' Broomtail_."

"And your big sister," the captain added with amusement. She was a little taller than her sister, with darker blond hair that was pulled into a short braid, and hazel eyes. Molly could definitely see the similarities between the two women. Tess wore a light gray-brown jacket with the arm bunched back just above her elbows, with another two layers under that, gloves like her sister's, and black pants with a belt.

The captain stuck out a hand for each of the travelers to shake. "Welcome," she said briskly, smiling a little stiffly. Molly got the feeling that dealing with customers wasn't usually her job. She gestured to the twins behind her. "This is Zack and Ryan Parton, they'll be taking care of your luggage in a minute."

One of them let out a groan. "We just finished loading the cargo," one of them complained. They were definitely twins: both tall and lanky, with blond hair that was short and scruffy on the one who'd spoken, but longer and scruffy on the other. They both had green eyes and narrowed, freckled faces. The one who'd spoken wore a black t-short with a brown jacket over it, while the other wore a long-sleeved gray jacket over a white shirt.

Tess turned to glare at them. "Yes, and now you'll be getting their luggage," she told them pointedly. "You gotta work for your stay here, Zack."

The young man grinned. "You'd never throw me off," he informed her cheerfully. "I'm too pretty to fire." His brother Ryan said nothing, just smirking slightly at his brother's jokes.

Tess just chuckled. "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that."

"They've got a blue box that needs to be brought in," Tammy told them. "C'mon, I'll help." She led them out to the hallway where the TARDIS was parked, leaving the travelers alone with Tess. She gave them a tight smile. "Welcome to _Ol' Broomtail,_ folks. Sorry 'bout the mess in here, we're a merchant ship as well as a ferry, so we've got some cargo needs to be dropped off. Shouldn't interfere with your flight none, but it does tend to get a bit underfoot. Now where'd you all say you were headed?"

The Doctor shrugged amiably. "Oh, nowhere in particular. We'll get off at whatever your next stop is."

Tess looked at him a little strangely. "Alright. Can't say you'll find much of a welcome on Whitefall, but it's your call. I'll take you to the passengers dorms then, let you know where everything is and where you're allowed."

"'Where we're allowed?'" Molly repeated dubiously.

Something dangerous flashed in the captain's eyes. In an even tone, she reminded them, "Like I said, it's a merchant ship. Plenty of clutter lying around I don't need anyone trampling through. You understand, of course."

Privately, Molly really wasn't that prepared to agree to that, but the Doctor just nodded easily, assuring her, "Of course, we won't be any trouble. But there is one thing." He threw an arm over Sherlock's shoulders, despite the detective glaring at him. "See, Sherlock here, he's a huge technology nut, can't get enough of it. Would it be too much if he could talk to someone about the ship and how it works?"

Tess looked back at him with suspicion, but after a few moments she just shrugged. "Of course," she said evenly. She crossed over to one of the walls, where there was an intercom. She buzzed it on, her voice echoing in the cargo hold as she spoke into it. "_Ty, leave that nest of yours a minute, I need you in the cargo bay._"

She clicked it off, then turned back to her passengers. "Like I said, we're heading to Whitefall, so the trip should take about a week, give or take. We have two meals a day, nothing fancy, just the usual protein tryin' to pretend it's food. Pickings have been pretty slim, so I'm gonna have to ask you to stay out of the kitchen except for breakfast and dinner."

The Doctor nodded agreeably. "Of course. We won't be any trouble at all, promise. Quiet as a mouse." Donna let out a snort at that, quickly covering it up with a cough when Tess looked at her.

A young man approached from the wide hallway at the back of the cargo bay, a towel slung over one shoulder. He was short and scrawny, with messy, sruffy black hair that fell over his pale, milky blue eyes, which were covered by glasses. The man wore a white T-shirt with some sort of logo that Molly didn't recognize, along with long, khaki pants. His arms and face were dusted with grease and oil, and his already-messy hair was mussed and flattened on one side. He adjusted his glasses as he approached, dabbing at his face with the towel, without much effect. "I was in the middle of something, Tess," he said briskly.

"Ah yes, your eternal battle with _Ol' Broomtail_ to make her better than functioning," the captain remarked with amusement. She turned back to her passengers. "Folks, this is Tyson Resor, our resident mechanic, and obsessive tinkerer. He's convinced himself he's going to fix up _Ol' Broomtail_ and make her some big, fancy cruise ship."

Ty sniffed. For someone covered in engine grease, he managed to look rather stuffy. "I merely want to sort out her wrinkles," he explained stiffly.

The captain chuckled. "And add extra miles, and add this, and that, and some extra lights." She laughed at his stiff expression, throwing an arm over his shoulder. "Come on Ty, this ship's older than you are, she's got kinks ain't never been sorted out. You fix one thing, 'nother gets broke. She ain't ever gonna be fancy by any stretch of the word."

The mechanic just shook his head. "Any ship can be something to be proud of, you work on her long enough. Now, was there something you needed, or did you just bring me out here to insult my work?"

Tess pulled back. "Right. Ty, this is Sherlock Holmes." She nodded towards the detective, who inclinced his head slightly. "He'll be riding with us to Whitefall, and he's got a few questions about the ship." She gave him a quick, warning glance. Molly guessed it meant something along the lines of, _Don't tell them too much._ The more she saw of this ship and its crew, the more uneasy she felt. Something was definitely off here.

Ty hesitated, then nodded. "Fine. Come on, I can talk while I work."

The two started off, but before they could leave, the Doctor put a hand on the mechanic's shoulder to stop him. "Actually, better let Donna tag along too."

The detective and the temp both whirled to glare at him, letting out angry "What?!"'s at the same time.

Tess looked at him suspiciously. "Why?"

The Time Lord grinned reassuringly. "Oh, we're trying to pick up as much mechanical knowledge as we can if we're gonna be traveling a bit is all, and we all need to learn." Donna seemed to try to be setting him on fire with the heat of her glare, but he seemed completely oblivious.

Ty looked uncertain, but after a few moments, Tess gave him a slight nod. He sighed. "Alright, fine. Fine. But let's get back, I've got work to do." He led Sherlock and Donna away, the latter turning to throw a final, burning glare at the Doctor as she left.

Once they were gone, the Doctor turned back to Captain Jones. "So, is that all the crew, then?"

"Everyone 'cept the pilot, Mindy, and Shane," the woman told him. "Mindy's flying right now, and Shane's probably in his bunk. You probably won't be seeing a lot of him, he pretty much keeps to himself. Now, to your rooms. Unless you plan on sharing?"

The two quickly shook their heads. "Oh no, we're not -"

"No, definitely not -"

Tess held up her hands, lips quirked into an amused smirk. "Alright, alright, say no more. And your friends back there, two rooms for them?"

Molly snorted. "Definitely." If there was anything less likely than Sherlock and Donna ever stopping their bickering, it was... that.

The captain nodded. "Right. Then follow me."

**SCENEBREAK**

Donna was livid. What the hell did that cocky, smug, stick-insect of an alien think he was playing at?! She had no desire to learn anything about the ship's technology, let alone spend all that time with Sherlock bloody Holmes. The only reason she complied was because she figured he'd done it so he could talk to Molly, and because it would've screwed up their cover story. She had a feeling the two had things they needed to talk about, mostly about whatever it was Molly wouldn't tell her about. There were things left unsaid between the two.

That didn't make her any happier about being stuck listening to Sherlock and some future mechanic pass techobabble back and forth for the foreseeable future. Her only comfort was she figured the engine room wouldn't be able to fit both Sherlock and his high horse. That, of course, was quickly squashed when they entered the engine room. It was small and mostly filled up with the engine in the middle, with the ceiling and floor all angling into a point behind the engine, so it was a somewhat tight fit for all three of them. Ty didn't offer any appology or comment, just popping under the engine to work while he and Sherlock chatted.

Ty seemed pretty stuffy at first, but once Sherlock started asking questions, he started to speak more openly, eyes flashing with passion as he talked about the ship he worked so hard for. "She's a beauty all right, though she'd be better if Tess'd let me work on the adjustments I want. She's an Albatross class, second generation, a classic design, beautiful too. 'Course, there's rust in just about every crack and crevice, but she runs smooth enough."

Sherlock seemed to be asking all the right questsions. He was rude and abbrasive on a good day, but somehow he seemed to be getting on Ty's good side. The two of them were blathering away together, happy as larks. Donna bit back a groan, sliding down to sit against the wall.

Suddenly, the ship began trembling ever so slightly, the engine roaring to life. Donna froze. "What the -?!"

Ty looked at her strangely from his spot under the engine. "We're taking off," he explained slowly, as if it should have been obvious. "We'll be in space in a few minutes."

Sherlock smirked at her. "Really, Noble, you must be more observant," he said in his smuggest, most infuriating tone.

The companion muttered something along the lines of "Bite me," under her breath, then turned away, trying to drown out the sound of their technobabble.

The Doctor really, _really_, owed her for this one.

**SCENEBREAK**

Once they had their rooms settled and Tess took off, the Doctor and Molly sat together in the companion's room, her on the bed, him leading against a dresser across from her. Once she was sure Tess was gone, she asked in a low voice, "Alright, is it just me, or is something going on here?"

The Time Lord shrugged. "Nothing that I've noticed."

Molly stared at him. "Really? You haven't noticed_anything_ fishy about the way the crew's acting?" she asked dubiously. The Time Lord might be thick sometimes, but he was usually more perceptive than that.

"I'd be surprised if they weren't acting fishy," he answered. At her bewildered look, he explained, "They're not merchants, they're thieves. Well, they could be both."

"Thieves?" Molly repeated in surprise.

"It's more common than you'd think in this time. Like she said, that government, the Alliance, won the big civil war and took over the outer planets? Well, they didn't really do a lot to take care of the rebels they'd conquered. Most of the outer planets are run-down and full of crime and low technology. Crime's about the only way to get by if you're from the border planets. Ships like this are pretty common – they'll take whatever jobs they can get to get by, legitimate or otherwise."

Molly blinked a few times, taking it all in. "So, basically we're traveling with... pirates?"

The Time Lord shook his head. "No no, thieves, not pirates. Pirates are ruthless. They cut down anything in their path, they don't care who gets hurt in the process. And yeah, there's plenty of those kinds of ships out there, but most of these people are just doing what they have to to get by. They won't hurt us if we don't give them reason to. In fact, there's a rather famous crew in this time period, thieves like this crew, and they started a movement that ended up restructuring a rather corrupt government." He grinned. "It's been a long time since I've been to this time. I kind of missed it, there's a certain rugged charm to it all."

The pathologist remembered something from their earlier conversation with Tammy. "What about the Chinese earlier. Why didn't it translate?"

"Probably because she was cursing," the Doctor said with a chuckle. "These humans have migrated over from Earth into this solar system because they thought the Earth was used up. They're mostly made up of the Chinese and American cultures, which have sort of meshed over the years. Basically everyone's bilingual. It's really fascinating."

Molly would've been equally excited, normally, but something about the crew just had her on edge. "If you're not worried about the crew, then why'd you send Donna with Sherlock?"

"Insurance. They're less likely to go after Sherlock if he's got someone with him."

Molly didn't consider that very reassuring.

**SCENEBREAK**

Mindy Tran, pilot of _Ol' Broomtail_, was having a good day.

She'd set _Ol' Broomtail_ on autopilot for the moment, and now she was making her way to her room, where she'd left the book she'd been reading earlier. There were several things in the 'verse she was grateful for, and one of them was that books were cheap as dirt to download these days. Even if she didn't have enough to download something new, she could just read the old words again, re-visiting them with new eyes, finding meanings she'd never seen there before.

On the way to her room, she noticed the door to one of the spare rooms was slightly ajar. She paused. The room was usually used for storing cargo, and if they'd picked up passengers like Tess had planned, she probably wouldn't want the door open for nosy civilians to stumble in through.

She went to close the door, but before she could, it creaked open a little more. The woman froze at what she saw inside. Then she screamed.

The lights powered down, the ship stopped moving, and everything went black.

* * *

Dun dun dun.

Yeah, a bit rushed at the end there, but whatever, I wanted to get the plot rolling.

I wanted there to be similarities to the crew of _Serenity_, but for them to definitely be their own characters. I hope I succeeded.

Random question for my fellow Browncoats out there (a Browncoat is what you call a Firefly fan): Which would you rather face, any DW monster/villain, or a Reaver?


	17. Ol' Broomtail: Part Three

Molly froze, instantly alert. Moments ago, the halls had echoed with a terrified scream, and now the lights were out, and she could no longer feel the engine rumbling under her feet. She slowly turned to face the Doctor, who was looking around with interest. He let out a slight groan. "Really? Now?"

The companion raised an eyebrow. "You're complaining about something like this? You?"

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, but this was Sherlock's trip," he explained. "I was really, _really_ hoping this wouldn't happen this time."

Molly's serious, alert mood was broken by sudden amusement. She chuckled, "He's not gonna let you hear the end of this."

"Yeah, at least not until I give him a trip _not_ spontaneously interuppted by danger or people trying to kill us. Ah well." He turned to look at his companion, throwing her an excited grin, which Molly returned. The Time Lord's excitement was infectious.

He hopped up to his feet, reaching out a hand for Molly to take, pulling her up to her feet as well. "Well then Miss Hooper, shall we go see what the problem seems to be?" he asked in a mock-formal tone, an idiotic grin on his face.

She grinned right back, imitating his tone. "Yes, Mister Smith, we shall."

As they got to their feet, they could hear feet pounding down the hallway. The door to their door was thrown open, and Tammy and Tess hurried into the room. Molly froze as the captain raised a gun, pointing it steadily at the Doctor's chest. In a curt, clipped tone, she asked, "You wanna tell me what the hell just happened?"

The companion felt anger burning in her chest as she watched the woman threaten her best friend. "That wasn't us-" she started, but she shut up as Tess clicked the safety off, gun pointed unwaveringly at the Time Lord.

"Save it," she growled. "Unless you want a gaping hole where your brains were, the next words out of pretty boy's mouth better be exactly what he's done to screw with my ship." Tammy stood back, gun still in her holster, watching Tess handle the situation.

The Doctor slowly raised his hands. "Listen, we're not the problem. We didn't do this," he told her calmly.

Tess considered this for a moment, then her expression grew hard. "Nope. Sorry, wrong answer." Without warning, she swung her pistol so it was aimed at Molly's head. The Doctor froze, a brief flash of fear and anger in his eyes. Molly felt her stomach plunge, but she forced herself to stare coolly at the owner of the gun.

The captain didn't even look at Molly as she pointed the gun at her. Her gaze stayed fixed on the Doctor. "I'll ask you again," she said in a voice that was dangerously calm. "What have you done to my ship?"

"It wasn't us," the Time Lord growled out.

Tess swung the gun to point at the ground right beside Molly's feet, firing it. The companion jumped at the gunshot, freezing as the captain pointed it once again at her forehead. "Tic toc, Doctor."

The Time Lord had been calm minutes before, but now he was visibly agitated. His face, always so expressive, wore a mix of fear, anger, and desperation. He glared at Tess with the clear rage of the Oncoming Storm. "I'm telling you, it wasn't us!" he snapped. "We've been sitting in here this whole time. We're telling the truth!"

Tess snorted. "Oh, that so?" she said sarcastically. "Sure don't seem like you've been so truthful up 'til now." The captain smirked slightly at the Doctor's clear fury, the dangerous set to his shoulders. "You're as much a missionary as I'm a fairy princess. I don't remember men of God looking quite so angry." Her gaze shifted over to Molly, eyes narrowed. "Or stand like soliders."

Molly hadn't realized she'd fallen into the stature she'd gained over the Year – shoulders squared, back straight, chin lifted defiantly. Tess smirked knowingly. "I seen plenty of fighters fresh outta the war. Ain't hard to spot. They all got that look about them." The captain turned to look back at the Time Lord. "Don't know about your two friends, but you two are dangerous. I know how to see a threat to my ship and my crew. Now, I'll ask you again. What. Have you done. To my ship."

The captain was focused totally on the Doctor. She wasn't paying the companion any attention. This was her chance. She took a quick step towards Tess and, before the captain could retaliate, quickly took the gun pointed at her head and pulled it out of her grasp in a swift disarm. Tammy had her gun out in an instant and pointed at Molly, but the companion just disarmed the gun and dropped it. She slowly put her hands back up. "We're telling the truth," she said roughly. "Whatever's going on on this ship, it's not because of us." Turning to face Tess, she added sharply, "Now maybe you should be spending less time worrying about us and just let us help you fix this."

Tess glared at her, but before she could say anything, Tammy rolled her eyes and growled, "_Go hwong tong_," with exasperation. She stepped between Tess and Molly, giving her sister a warning glance. "I've been helping the boys get that box through this hallway, we would've seen if they'd left their room. 'Less they've somehow mucked up the ship from here, they didn't do it."

Captain Jones glared at her sister. "You expect me to believe the ship goes to hell not hours after these _bei bi shiou ren_ show up, and it ain't connected?"

"I'm saying that we oughta be more concerned with getting _Ol' Broomtail_ up and running again," Tammy explained evenly.

Tess glared at her with narrowed eyes for a moment, then nodded stiffly. She crossed over to the wall, clicking on the intercom. "Ty, what the hell's going on here?"

The young man's muffled voice sounded quite flustered. "_Working on it, Captain._"

"You gotta give me better than that, Ty. Those passangers with you, they do this?"

"_What, Sherlock and Donna? No, they've been with me the whole time, I would've seen that,_" he told her dismissively.

The Doctor glared pointedly at Tess, a clear expression of _I told you so._. The captain looked somewhat annoyed at being proved wrong. She snapped into the intercom, "Well then what the hell happened to the engine?"

"_Erm, I'm not sure,_" came the muffled reply. "_This wasn't done from the engines. Whatever happened, this was from the pilot's end. Check the bridge. Tell you one thing though, this wasn't an accident._"

Captain Jones tensed, voice sharp with interest. "What do you mean?"

"_I mean the engine didn't just fail on it's own. Someone's gone and deliberately forced it into Emergency Shutdown. This was deliberate, Captain._"

Tess dropped head head for a moment in frustration, hissing, "_Gou cao de ta ma duh._" The Doctor's eyebrows raised in amusement at her word choice, but it stayed untranslated for Molly. The captain turned the intercom back on, snapping into it, "Ty, you have to get those engines working. These ain't friendly skies. We can't be sitting here all vulnerable."

"_Yeah, tell me something I don't know,_" he replied sarcastically. "_Ask Mindy, she's the one who was in the bridge. She knows those controls better than I do._"

"Got it," Tess said tersely. "I'll see if we can reach her. Just do what you can."

She switched the intercom off, but before she could switch it over, it buzzed on. "_Captain?_"

The captain switched it on quickly. "I'm here, Zack. What'd'ya got?"

The young man's voice was grim, more subdued than before. "_We found Mindy. She's dead._"

Tess drew in a sharp breath, and Tammy looked horrified. Molly and the Doctor shared a quick glance. The companion felt the familiar clench in her heart, the cold feeling of grief for a person she'd never met, yet somehow felt responsible for. That was what it was to travel with the Doctor. People died everywhere you went, and they were all your responsibility. Molly sometimes wondered whether it was worth all the stars the TARDIS could offer.

"How?" Tess asked in a tense tone.

A different, deeper voice sounded. "_Shane here, I'm with them. Looks like she was shot._"

Before Tess could reply, Zack piped up again. "_Whoever killed her was brutal, she looks awful, Captain. She looks like she's been... oh god, it almost looks like she's been clawed by something huge._" The Doctor and Molly exchanged quick glances.

Tess's eyes narrowed. "'Clawed?'" she repeated dubiously.

Shane's voice sounded again. "_More likely they're slices from some sort of blade._"

"_I'm not so sure,_" Zack argued. "_The gashes look too big for any kind of blade I know._"

The captain replied tersely, "You'd be surprised what kind of weapons there are out there, kid." She paused for a moment, quietly collecting herself, her fingers tightly clenching the comm. Then she switched it on again, this time causing it to echo throughout the ship. "_This is Captain Jones. Mindy is dead. We don't know who killed her, but right now, our concern is getting this boat moving again. Be careful, everyone._"

She quickly switched back over to speaking through to the engine room. "Ty, can you get _Ol' Broomtail_ moving again without Mindy?"

The mechanic's voice was more subdued now. "_Of course. But it'll be tricky. I need to be on the bride working the controls, but there has to be someone at either of the side engines and the main engine waiting to turn them on at just the right time._"

"Fine. Get that figured out and get back to me." She switched the comm off.

Molly cleared her throat. "You sure Mindy wasn't clawed like Zack said?" she asked.

Tess turned to glare at her. "And what exactly d'you think clawed her?" she asked, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Last time I checked, ain't nobody on board's got claws."

"Well clearly someone killed her," Molly snapped, "and you don't seem to think its any of your crew, so either you're wrong, or someone's hiding out on board you don't know about. It could be an alien for all you know."

Tammy looked at her incredulously, letting out a short, harsh laugh. "Aliens ain't real, kid," she said bluntly. "Everyone knows that. Even Reavers were human once. 'Sides, last time I checked, Reavers aren't in the business of shooting or clawing up the folks they kill. They ain't nearly that merciful."

Before Molly could ask more about Reavers, the Doctor spoke up. "Alright, so what's the plan?"

Captain Jones glared at him. "That ain't your concern," she told him coldly.

"'Course it is," Molly insisted. "We can help."

"Y'aren't leaving this bunk," the captain snapped.

The Doctor took a stiff step towards her, tensed and eyes narrowed. There was something dangerous in his stance, threatening, but determined too. Tess squared her shoulders, lifting her chin defiantly as she glared up at him. The Time Lord spoke in a low, deliberate voice. "You threatened my companion, and we're going to talk about that later. But right now, your crewmen are dying. Something on your ship is killing them, and if we don't find out what, and if we don't get this ship moving soon, they're all going to die. I can help you. Don't let your crew die just because you're too proud to accept help!"

Tess was getting an Oncoming Storm-level glare, but she didn't seem fazed. Her expression was completely steely as she bit out, "Just because you didn't kill my friend yourself doesn't mean I trust you. And I am _not_ going to risk anyone else just because you say you want to play hero. You're staying here. Period."

Ignoring the Time Lord, she started off for the door, calling over her shoulder, "Tammy, you stay here and watch them."

Her sister stated at her incredulously. "What?" She went to block Tess from leaving, glaring at her as she said, "We can just lock them in and leave 'em. We need everyone we can helping, not sitting around here playing babysitter."

Captain Jones' expression didn't waver. "That is an order, Tamara," she said in a voice like steel.

The first mate hesitated, then reluctantly took a step back, giving Tess room to leave. "Yes ma'am," she said stiffly. Tess nodded curtly, then pulled the door open, closing it firmly behind her as she left.

**SCENEBREAK**

Donna was a little worried by how unsurprised she was that the ship had broken. Seriously, did the Doctor ever go on any _normal_ trips, the kind where you didn't somehow attract every murderous psychopath and dangerous situation possible. It was inevitable at this point, any time she stepped outside the TARDIS, something was going to try to kill her. The consistancy of it was worrying.

More worrying was how much she enjoyed it.

As Ty switched off the comm, Donna asked, "So how exactly are we supposed to fix this?"

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck in a motion eeriliy reminiscent of the Doctor. "We need to start up the engines again, but we need to turn the Emergency Shutdown off first. Once I overried the system and reboot it, the engines all need to be turned on at the same time."

Sherlock took over, not missing a beat as he said, "There's three engines, this main one, and two sides ones on either 'wing' of the ship."

Ty nodded wearily. He turned back to the comm, switching it on. "Hey Zack, you there?"

The young man's voice buzzed through. "_We're here, Ty. What do you need?_"

"You and Ryan need to each get to a side engine. You remember how I told you to start it up, right?"

"_Yeah, we remember. You want us to do that now?_"

"Not yet," Ty told him. "Get to the engine and get it ready, but don't start it up yet. Wait 'til I call you and tell you."

"_Got it,_" the young man replied.

The mechanic switched off the comm, then turned back to the two travelers. "I need to be up on the bridge so I can switch off the Emergency Shutdown. You remember enough of what I told you about the engine to set it up?"

Sherlock smirked slightly. "Obviously," he said smugly. "It's been too long since I've had a proper challenge like this."

Donna glared at the detective. Did he have to sound so bloody cheerful about it? Someone had died for christsake! She could see the slump in Ty's shoulders, the grief and weariness that dulled his eyes even as he focused on saving the crew members still left. She felt a flare of irritation. Did Sherlock really have to be so damn oblivious?

Ty nodded stiffly. "Right. I'll be in the bridge if you need anything. Just switch the comm on and direct it to the bridge." He turned and started off for the door, shoulders still slumped.

Donna felt a rush of sympathy for the kid. "Ty, wait," she called out, taking a few steps towards him. The mechanic turned to face her, brow furrowed. She hesitated."Just... I'm sorry," she said softly.

Ty's eyes grew heavier for a moment, expression softening into grief. "Yeah," he said quietly. Then he turned away sharply, voice stiff as he repeated, "Call me if you need me." Then he was out the door and gone.

Behind her, Sherlock spoke up in that smug voice that made her want to strangle him. "Well then, looks like it's just you and me."

Donna clenched her jaw, using every bit of self control she had to keep herself from slugging him in the face. For the foreseeable future, until they got the ship working again, she was going to be stuck in a room alone with Sherlock Holmes, helping him work on an engine she knew nothing about, giving him ample opportunities to comment on her ineptitude. She'd had nightmares less unappealing than this.

As she turned back to face him, she had one, vivid thought. _I'm gonna bloody _kill_ that Time Lord for this_.

* * *

Sorry for the lateness of the chapter, I've been busy moving into college. Hopefully now that I'm settled in, the posting'll be more regular.


	18. Ol' Broomtail: Part Four

Molly leaned against the wall beside her bed, letting out a sigh. It had been half an hour since they'd been locked in their room. The Doctor was pacing, occasionally taking a moment to glare at the locked door. Tammy was sitting on the edge of the other bed, glaring at nothing. No one had spoken since Tess had left.

The companion was tensed with energy, completely on alert. Someone had died, and instead of being able to help, they were being forced to just sit there and do nothing. She was itching to get and and _do_ something, anything, her muscles were humming with nervous tension, but all she could do was sit on her bed and glare at her feet.

Finally, the Doctor broke the silence. He turned to look at Molly, corner of his mouth quirked into a slight half-smile. "Well, looks like it's just you and me," he said brightly.

Molly nodded tersely. "Yep." She wasn't really in the mood for small talk. Not when she could be out doing something.

The Time Lord didn't seem to take the hint. He leaned against the sink across from her, arms behind him to support him. He continued, "It's been a bit since it's been just the two of us, hasn't it? I can't remember the last time it was just us."

"Must've been before Sherlock came on," Molly said lightly. The conversation was getting dangerously near territory neither had breached, and she very much wanted to keep it that way. There were things she just didn't want to talk about, and up until now, the Doctor had seemed to go along with that.

The Doctor nodded thoughtfully. "Must've been. Been a while, hasn't it?" He chuckled. "Things were a bit simpler then. Just you and me running from the world, no consulting detectives lurking around the TARDIS or Master or Moriarty to worry about. It was a little less crowded."

The companion flinched at the mention of the Master. That was _definitely_ something she didn't want to talk about, especially not with the Doctor. She turned her head away sharply, not meeting the Doctor's eyes. "Yeah, well, things are different now," she said stiffly. She really hoped the Time Lord would take the hint and drop the subject.

He raised an eyebrow at her tone. "I guess," he agreed slowly, looking at her strangely. After a few moments, he asked, "You're okay with having Donna on board, right? I know I already asked -"

Molly cut him off before he could embarrass himself further. "It's fine, Doctor, really. Donna's great." It had been a little weird at first, having someone entirely new on the TARDIS, but she really didn't mind anymore. She liked Donna, and even if she could be a little brash and loud, and even if she pushed a little more than Molly would've liked, it wasn't Donna that was the problem.

She could feel the Time Lord still looking at her with concern, and it was starting to bug her. In a sharper tone than she'd meant, Molly told him, "Look, I'm fine, okay? I'm completely fine. You don't need to keep harping on about it."

The Doctor looked a little hurt at her tone. She felt a bit bad, but mostly, she just wanted the conversation to end. In truth, there was a reason she and the Doctor hadn't really been alone since the Year. All that time, she had been looking forward to traveling with the Doctor again, but now that she was, it was too uncomfortable. There was too much unsaid, too much that had happened in that Year that the Doctor knew nothing about.

And deep down, there was that little part of her that blamed the Doctor for the Year That Never Was. She knew it didn't make sense, and she didn't believe it, not really. But the Year had been hard on her, harder than she would admit to anyone. She had been forced into tough decisions, had seen things and done things that would always haunt her, and she still had the occasional nightmare. Logic really didn't have much place in her head when she though about the Year. So there was still that little, tiny voice in her head that reminded her that if she'd never met the Doctor, if he hadn't taken them to the end of the universe, if he had just taken out the Master when he'd had the chance, then she wouldn't have suffered as she did. His usual, Time Lord oblivious nature just made it worse. He didn't even seem to realize anything was wrong. He thought she could just walk around the Earth for a year and bounce right back like absolutely nothing was wrong. He could be so clueless sometimes.

Well, if that's what he thought, no reason to say anything to prove him wrong. Besides, what did it matter? She was fine, really. And even if she wasn't, she definitely _didn't_ want to talk about it. What was the point in dredging it all up again. The Year was over, and it was time to move on. So yeah, she'd been avoiding the Doctor, because she'd known he would ask, and she'd known he would worry, and she really didn't need that. She just wanted to be left alone.

The Time Lord looked at her with a solemn expression, clearly still confused, and just a little bit old and sad. He didn't seem to understand what was wrong, but he clearly knew something was the matter. After a few moments, he gave a stiff nod. "Yeah, alright," he said quietly. "Sorry." Still glancing back occasionally at Molly, he got back to his feet and began his pacing again. The companion let out a slow breath, slowly sliding her back lower down against the wall, her arms flopping wearily to her sides. This was going to be a long wait.

**SCENEBREAK**

Forty five minutes.

It had been forty five minutes since the ship had stopped working. Forty five minutes since Ty had gone to the front of the ship to figure out how to make it work from the pilot's end. The young mechanic had called in every so often to give some new instruction or check in on them, but mostly it had been forty five minutes of Sherlock being a completely smug, irritating, emotionless, _infuriating_ bastard. And Donna was getting fed up with it.

Admittedly, most of the time was spent with him working, but even as concentrated as he was, he still managed to be a total ass. The way he'd get excited whenever he figured something out, smirking away to himself. In the Doctor, she just would've seen it as his natural excitement, but in Sherlock, all it did was remind her of how little he cared about anybody. He hadn't reacted at all when Mindy had died; he never did.

Molly had once said she'd initially thought that Sherlock and the Doctor were similar. Donna had no idea where on Earth she'd ever gotten that idea. Those two couldn't be more different if they tried. Sure, they were both smart, yeah, but that was about it. The Doctor really cared about people in general. He never used violence if he could help it, and he was an advocate for the importance of the ordinary human. Most of all, he cared, about everyone.

Sherlock was the complete opposite. Smug, vain, arrogant, he was all about his own brilliance and how to further his own mind. He didn't seem to care about anybody other than himself, and that scared Donna a little. She had a feeling that if Sherlock felt it would be better for him to leave her and the others to die, he'd do it without hesitating. His lack of compassion of any kind, even more than his infuriating rudeness, was what made Donna dislike him so. He didn't seem to serve any purpose on the TARDIS but to criticize others and find outlets for his brilliance.

Donna let out a slight huff of boredom, turning her head to look at the door. Sherlock heard her movement, and looked up with a slight smirk. "Bored?" he asked lightly.

Christ, how'd he manage to make that one word sound so damn smug? Suppressing any of her nastier comments, she let out a tight, "Just sick of sitting here."

"I'd think you'd be used to it," the detective snarked, barely glancing up at her from his work. "You seem to do a lot of that wherever we go."

The companion felt the familiar rush of anger. "God, can't you be civil for two seconds?" she snapped irritably. "It's like you can't open your mouth without pissing everyone off."

Sherlock quickly retorted, "That description would better describe you, Ms. Noble."

Donna would've normally carried on, arguing with him over nothing until someone interrupted, but right now, she was just too angry with him to give him the satisfaction. Instead, she glared at him for several moments, thinking over everything she'd had to put up with because of that man. Finally, she asked in a low voice, "Why are you here?"

The detective smirked, glancing up at her briefly. "You're slower than usual today, Donna, already forgetting I got here the same way you did."

"No, why are you _here_, on the TARDIS, traveling?" she snapped. "I mean, Molly I get, she actually likes traveling and helping people. But what the bloody hell are you doing here? You're always prattling on about how useless sight-seeing is, so you're not here to see the universe. You certainly don't care about anyone besides your blessed self, so you're not here to help people. So why are you here? I think it's a simple enough question."

Sherlock had started out smirking, but as she went on, she could see minute changes in his expression. His smirk slowly faded, and though he appeared mostly expressionless, there was a flash of something in his eyes, a slight twitch in his jaw. She wasn't sure what it meant, but if she hadn't known better, she would've said it was something like sadness. It was gone as soon as it had appeared, and he soon told her smoothly, "Interesting question. Let me ask you one - why do you care so much?"

Donna raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Why care?" the detective repeated with a shrug. "You're not from a well-off family, and your low intelligence means you're not going to get far in life." He rattled off his assessment of her at rapid-fire, not giving her a chance to rage at him about it. "You're insecure about your mother and about what happened with your fiance, and you haven't had a good run of life. So why should you care about anybody else? And why expect me to care? I daresay you care enough for the both of us."

Donna could feel irritation bubbling underneath. She turned to face Sherlock, squaring her shoulders as she glared at him. "Because it's what people do," she snapped. "We care about other people. And yeah, maybe my life isn't exactly perfect, and thank you for pointing that out, you complete arsehole. But that's my problem. I don't have to pass it off on anyone else or act like a wanker because of it." Sherlock rolled his eyes and started to say something, but Donna cut him off strongly. "No, you're listening to me now. Got it?" With a raised eyebrow, he fell silent, letting her continue.

The former temp continued bitingly, "Why do you think I even signed onto this crew of ours, hmm? I like helping people. I want my life to mean something, to have helped others, saved them even. Caring about other peoples' lives, kind of what makes us the good guys. And I'm sorry, you bloody twat, if I don't measure up to whatever standards you have. But you know what? You don't measure up to mine. Cause you may think you're all brilliant and everything, and that that somehow makes you better than everyone else, but I couldn't care less if you were Einstein himself. In my book, if you're rude and arrogant and like tearing other people down, all the brilliance in the world won't stop you from being a useless arse. Now, you might not care about little things like helping people and making them feel better about themselves, but I do. I may not be smart, but it's what I'm good at, it's what I care about, and if you think that somehow makes me lesser than you, then screw you." She narrowed her eyes. "I'm on this crew too now, and I've done just as much as you, and I deserve to know why you're here and whether I can trust you."

Sherlock had listened to her rant in silence, expressionless, but Donna almost thought she saw a hint of something in his eyes. If she hadn't know better, she would've called it respect. He leaned back, looking thoughtful. As he thought, his expression shifted, slipping through several minute changes. Quiet respect to sadness, then grief, then slowly collecting himself into grim resignation. Finally, he said slowly, "I have this... friend." Donna blinked in surprise. That wasn't the answer she'd been expecting. "A good friend. Someone tried to kill him. The Doctor and Molly helped me with that, and now my friend thinks I'm dead. And I can't go back, not yet. So I'm here instead."

Donna looked at him curiously. Knowing Sherlock, she'd been expecting some sort of smart-ass remark. Not the hint of warmth in his tone when he'd mentioned that friend. Not the hard grief in his tone when he'd talked about being dead. Not some actual hint of emotion for another human being.

Despite herself, she felt herself feeling just a little bit sorry for the detective. "I'm sorry," she said in a slightly less gruff tone. "What do you mean though, you can't go back?"

"There was this criminal, Moriarty," he said in a dull voice. "He set it up so that if I didn't kill myself, he would kill my friend. So Molly and the Doctor helped me fake my own death. Now Moriarty's dead, but his network of criminals isn't and if I don't take them all out before coming back from the dead, they'll kill my friend. And I can't let that happen." There was hard determination in that last sentence, a rare blaze of passion in his eyes. Donna had never seen him express that much emotion beyond arrogance before.

The companion felt her anger diffuse in the face of this new information. She might not be as intelligent as Time Lords or genius detectives, but one thing she was good at was reading people. And what she was reading from Sherlock now flew in the face of everything she'd assumed about him. Whoever this friend of his was, he seemed to really, actually care about this person, more than she ever would've thought was possible for him. Even if he was an insufferable twat, he was human, and now she was feeling more than just slightly sorry for him.

In a soft, warm tone, she told him, "I'm sorry." The detective looked up at her in surprise, arching an eyebrow. She wanted to say something else, assure him that she really was sorry for accusing him of being a robot. Finally, she asked curiously, "Your friend, what's his name?"

Sadness flashed in Sherlock's eyes. He swallowed before telling her in a slightly choked voice, "John. John Watson."

Donna smiled softly. "Well, you're still a miserable stick insect, but I'm sorry about what I said. And if there's any way at all I can help with you getting to see John again, just tell me."

He looked at her curiously, something unreadable in his eyes. "Right," he said lightly.

The former temp let out a snort, the solemn mood broken. "You could say 'thank you,' you tosser," she grumbled, but it was more affectionate than before.

Sherlock smirked slightly, letting out a light chuckle. "Right." Donna rolled her eyes, turning back to look at the door. A few moments later, Sherlock spoke again, voice unusually solemn. "Thank you." Donna looked back at him in shock, but he had already turned back to his work, ignoring her once again. She turned back to the door, mulling over what had just happened. Finally, she smirked to herself. She'd gotten Sherlock Holmes to act like an actual human being for a whole minute. Not a bad accomplishment.

And maybe something that could be repeated.

* * *

I'm going to start up the broken record once again and go on about how I'm sorry for the wait, how school's keeping me busy, settling into college, blah blah blah. At this point, you might want to expect some wait time between posts. I'll try to do better, but I make no promises this time.

I also apologize for my lack of responding to reviews, I've gotten really bad at that all of the sudden. Let me know if I haven't responded to a review, I'll try to do it right away.

Yeah. Erm. Here we are, at chapter four of this episode. Usually that's where the episode ends. Except, not this time. This time, we're looking at five, possible six parts to this episode. Sorry for it being so long, but I have a lot of character development plus plot stuff I want to get through here. I'm especially pleased with my Donna and Sherlock conversation, not quite as much with my Molly and Doctor conversation.

And yeah, Sherlock owes his little ability to say "thank you" to that conversation with Molly earlier.


End file.
